Our freshman year of college, an invisible string seemed to weave its way through our webs of friends and tie us together. Some of my new friends knew Rich from high school and my roommates were in classes with him as well. We were introduced by multiple people, like some force connecting us wasn't quite satisfied yet. I remember noticing it at the time, finding it funny that we kept running into each other. Finally, we were both invited to play badminton by mutual friends and were able to get to know one another. We hung out one-on-one and realized that there was something more to it than casual friendship. We became a couple officially on December 18th, 2013 during semester break - we didn't want to wait until seeing each other in person again. We've been together ever since and are so excited to turn that invisible string into a thread of gold around each of our fingers! -Erica

We decided to take a vacation to the Pocono Mountains in October of 2021, overlapping Erica's birthday. She had sent me pictures of the engagement ring she wanted earlier that year, and unbeknownst to her, I had bought it. I knew that I wanted to propose on this trip. I hoped that booking the trip the same time as her birthday would make her think the proposal would come some other time. We had a great time, going out to a nice dinner on the 6th for Erica's birthday. I decided I was going to propose the next day. Finally, the moment came. We were in our hotel room, watching a movie. I told her how much I loved her, grabbed the ring from my bag, and asked her to marry me. She didn't suspect a thing. And even better, she said yes! -Richard