We're Getting Married

Eight years ago, I received a notification from POF that read " B. B. S". Of course, I was curious, what the heck does BBS mean? Well it stands for " BACON, BEER, AND SQUATS". You might ask why Steve decided to start a conversation with these three words. His answer was "You love bacon, I love bacon. I drink beer, you might like it too . You like doing squats, I want to watch you do squats. We are meant to be together". The confidence in this man was very endearing. From there, we texted and called each other for a couple of days, until we decided to meet up at the Palisades Mall. Per usual, I was there on time and Steve was late, but not only was he late but he was also lost inside the mall. I had to look for him inside a 4 story mall, for a person I never met before. I was searching up and down the mall, looking for a guy in a light orange shirt and khaki shorts. There was a point where I even called him to see where he was located but every time I told him that I was in one place, he would start to walk the other way. For a while, we were playing hide and seek in plain sight until I turned around and he was there. Our first date was at the Cheesecake Factory and after dinner we went upstairs to get some cold stone ice cream. While taking the escalator, we had our first kiss; after informing each other that both of us hated PDA. Our date last about 4 hours filled with laughter's. When it was time to go Steve's car broke down and overheated. We had to wait a couple of more hours until his car cooled down. Those extra four hours were amazing. We were talking like we've known each other for years. I'm pretty sure that he could of left 3 hours ago, but we connected in a deeper level, that both of us didn't want to leave. Plus, the universe told us that we needed a longer date, since his car just randomly overheated. Those 8 hours we're perfect in everyway possible. I like to think that was a blessing in disguised.

On September 7, 2023, we traveled to Nashville TN to celebrate Cristine's 30th birthday. It was the perfect spot because Cristine loves Nashville with it's hot chicken, as well as the live country music and dancing at the honky tonks. Cristine being......well Cristine had some stipulations she made pretty clear to me in regards to the engagemet. Her nails had to be done, we needed to have someone there to photograph our special movement, and it "would be nice to have it done before I am 30." So here we are on the Saturday 2 days before her Birthday. My college roommate and his wife were there and her best friend literally just got in after a 2 day travel ordeal because of the weather. No one on the trip knew what I was doing that weekend. My original plan was to have our friends there and have one of the bands sing her a song by one of her favorite artists, Cody Johnson. Well as Mike Tyson said "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." What we thought was going to be a larger group turned into my college roommate, his wife and her best friend who originally was supposed to leave NY Friday morning, but didn't get to Nashville until 10pm Saturday because of weather delays. On top of that Cristine kept bouncing from one bar to the next so I could never time it right to make the song request. To make things even more fun....when she finally decided on one bar, it was 1:00 AM and she might of had too many cocktails with her friends. I was starting to think that today was not going to be the day I proposed to her. Luckily on our way back to the hotel Cristine wanted to take pictures with everyone on Broadway, and I thought "perfect you just gave me my in.....and I have a photographer." It went from a group pictures to individual pictures. I was up next. We took 1 picture and Cristine started to walk away thinking we were done. I grabbed her by her hands and pulled her back to me and said " wait... come back.. why don't you love a little longer". She looked at me and said "But I do love you" and kissed me. As she kissed me I dug in my pocket and got the ring in my fist. I then took her hand and opened my hand so she could feel the ring. She looked down and said " What's this?". I said "what do you think it is?" She was shocked, that is when I asked her to marry me. I think you all know the answer because you are reading our wedding website. Then we celebrated our engagement at 3 AM on September 10, 2023 by getting some tacos. OH... and burritos too.