We're getting married!

Fort Myers, FL is the home to baseball spring training for the Boston Red Sox. Back in March 2018, my friend Kelsey and her now-husband, Chris, invited our friend group to a Red Sox game on St. Patrick’s Day. This sounded like the best way to spend St. Patrick’s Day, so of course I agreed. About a week before the game, Kelsey texted the girls to let us know that Chris was bringing a friend who lived up in Bradenton, and to assure us that this wasn’t a “set up.” The day of the game, I spent all morning sweating in a gym, coaching volleyball and rushed over to Chris’ house to meet up with everyone. My first thought upon meeting Christian was, “Oh! He’s actually really cute.” After the Red Sox won, the whole gang went to Taco Bell and then to a street festival for St. Patrick’s Day. I remember spending my entire day talking to Christian, laughing & joking around, and learning about him growing up in Boston, his family and his interests. Christian has this incredible ability to allow people to be 100% themselves around him. It felt so easy and I was instantly attracted to his charismatic personality, his silliness and his love for people. In my clumsiness, I accidentally knocked his glasses off his face and we joked about how I’d have to make it up to him. He was obviously nervous about asking for my number, but I gave it to him and we started talking for hours on the phone in the days/weeks following. The next week he took me on our first date to a Green Bay Packer-themed restaurant by the beach (as a Chicago Bears fan, I had to look past this….) and then we threw a frisbee around and watched the sunset. We both knew that we had an amazing connection from the start, but neither of us knew if we could make it work, living almost 90 miles away from each other. I’m pretty sure Christian’s a little worried about the car he’s been leasing, but we have made it work and will continue to make it work until next spring when we get married! -Melissa

Growing up, my parents always took us to Canada in the summer time. We have family in Montreal, Quebec and since it's less than six hours away, renting a mini van and driving over was the usual. Melissa and I planned a trip several months ago to visit family in Boston. Since she's never been to Canada before, I thought it would be a cool idea to drive to Montreal and spend the weekend exploring. The trip was a few months away and by this point Melissa and I had already gone ring shopping "for fun." And although it was fun checking rings out together, I also was laser focused trying to remember everything she wanted in a ring. As most guys are when they go ring shopping. But, after a few weeks and several visits, the ring was in my possession. Just a week away from the trip I began to become very nervous. Not for the chance of her saying no, but rather because of the thought of her finding out beforehand or security confiscating the ring at the airport. Every worse case scenario ran through my head as I traveled with the most valuable thing I've ever purchased in my backpack just a couple feet away from my future fiancé. As I had hoped, we traveled from Fort Myers all the way to Montreal without her picking up on anything, even after she had gone though my backpack looking for gum! I also got lucky because I wasn't planning on proposing when we booked the trip and it just so happened that we were going to Mount Royal, a beautiful photo worthy view that would be a perfect place to propose. So that's what happened. The biggest challenge in asking her to marry me was the surprise. She's very good at picking up on when I'm acting differently and since this was such a huge moment in my life it was hard to maintain composure. The Mount Royal part of the day was in the afternoon and my nerves were exploding. My family and I were paranoid that she knew all day. Luckily for me, she was completely stunned when I got on one knee. She said yes and now I'm blessed! -Christian