Some love stories start with a grand gesture. Ours started with mozzarella sticks. Back in 2017, our good friends Chris and Val (both in the wedding!) had just started dating at the University of Delaware. Ryan went out to meet Chris's new girlfriend, and Val brought along her roommate — a girl named Elisha. We all ended up at a TGI Fridays for endless apps, and while we didn't know it yet, that lunch changed everything. We didn't start dating right away. We hung out more and more and started developing feelings for each other, but life had other plans. We were graduating with very different paths ahead — Ryan moved to Indianapolis for work, and Elisha stayed near Delaware to start her career as a high school math teacher. For 15 months, we went our separate ways, but something about that first meeting stuck with both of us. When Ryan moved back to the East Coast and landed in Hoboken, NJ, things finally started to fall into place. Elisha was now living with Chris and Val (naturally), and for the first time, we were both single at the same time. What started as weekend trips back and forth between Hoboken and Delaware quickly turned into something neither of us could ignore. We fell in love somewhere between the NJ Turnpike and I-95. We've been living together in Hoboken since 2021. Ryan switched companies, Elisha traded the classroom for an actuarial career, and somewhere along the way we built a life together that neither of us saw coming back at that TGI Fridays. Ryan proposed at one of our favorite spots in the city — Brooklyn Bridge Park near Jane's Carousel, with the Manhattan skyline glowing behind us. It was the best day of our lives. Until June 5th.