Well there’s been a change of plans once again!

James likes to tell everyone we met in the produce section of Publix as we both reached for the same head of broccoli, but the reality is that we're in the extreme minority of success stories from the online dating world. On a sunny hot day in Florida, we matched and started chatting. After a few days of conversing on the app, we decided to take the next step and exchange phone numbers. We spoke for hours on end via text and phone before setting up our first date.

This unexpected date started off with meeting in a Starbucks parking lot. As James opened the door to get in the passenger seat, he noticed that I had a wooden baseball bat on the floor. James hesitated at first, giving me a strange look, but got in the car... and we still have the baseball bat! This entire evening was unexpected, as James’ original plans to see a friend fell through, so he asked if we could see each other since he was already up in my area. I had to run a few errands for all the weddings I was in that fall so he decided to tag along. I clearly couldn’t concentrate on the errands so we decided to figure something else to do. We stood in the Bed Bath and Beyond parking lot going back and forth on what we can do when we decided on mini golf! We drove up to Jupiter to Lighthouse Cove Mini Golf and the competition began.

Anyone who knows the two of us, knows family is the most important thing to us. We had a family vacation already planned where James' family would be coming down from NJ to the west coast of Florida and my family would be coming across the state with us. This was going to be the first time my family was to meet Staci (James' Sister), Herbie (Staci's husband) and Dominick (their son). I had no idea what was coming, and thought the exciting part was just having everyone there together! We were looking forward to enjoying a weekend of relaxation away with the everyone. Saturday was spent with everyone at the beach catching some rays and catching up. James loves sunsets and my mother loves to take pictures. Everyone in Venice Beach, FL plans their dinners around the sunset. We went out to eat dinner (Italian, of course) and then headed to the beach. We lined our beach chairs lined up and the sun was starting to set. James walked me down to the edge of the water and we started posing for a picture as the sky started to change colors behind us. We were laughing as he then took my hand and got down on one knee. I think his hands were actually shaking more than mine, and I needed to help him put the ring on my finger. Of course I said yes, ugly cried, and then received an unexpected standing ovation from complete strangers who were only there to see a sunset! We were able to enjoy the rest of the weekend with our families celebrating our engagement.