We met during the first Covid summer — a summer where our roommates were our parents, our social lives were characterized by movie nights with said parents, and our only way to date was to do it virtually. When Blake first liked me on Hinge, I remember being psyched that he was a cute and smart Jewish boy. He was intrigued by the fact that my prompts were silly and weird. There was a lot of text banter, followed by a few virtual dates, followed by visits to Holmdel Park (which is where we had our engagement shoot!). With everything else stripped away — no restaurants, no drinking, no movies or museums, nothing but pure conversations — we realized we had a deep and real connection. We could sit together for hours doing literally nothing. In a stressful world of isolation and sickness, and with my beloved grandfather battling cancer, being with Blake was the easiest and best escape in the world. As the weather grew cold, we had to get our parents' permission to have the other person visit and enter the Covid bubble. It was very Jane Austen-esque. Blake was even able to meet my beloved Pop Pop just 6 weeks before he passed away. We asked Pop Pop that night to tell us what makes a marriage last (his own marriage had spanned over 50 years until my grandmother passed away in 2012). He paused for a moment and answered, "Stability." That night, he gave me the tightest hug and said to Blake, "There's nothing I love more than this special girl." On the day Pop Pop died, a gut-wrenchingly devastating day for my family, Blake drove straight to my parents' house with a giant basket full of cheese. That's when I knew that my grandfather's subliminal message to my new boyfriend, to cherish and support me, had been fully and whole-heartedly embraced by this man I'd met on an app. The world has been rocky since those early days. We've had losses and grief, lost jobs, health scares, career transitions, and now a terrifying world raging with hatred and antisemitism. But through it all, per my grandfather's advice, we have created our own stability — our own solid family unit that bends and arches where the wind takes us. I cannot believe the kind, ambitious, silly, morally-driven, unbelievably patient, charitable, and sharp-as-a-knife man I get to marry. And when Blake proposed with the very diamond my late grandfather once gave to my late grandmother, I felt an old wound of loss stitch itself shut. My grandfather, and his words of stable wisdom, will guard us as we enter our marriage. --Sarah -- Sarah's pretty great, too. -- Blake