It all started in Pharmacy School at Nova Southeastern University when Tiffany decided to join Kappa Psi during her orientation week. As with all good love stories, this one starts out with a friendship. Their paths crossed pretty quickly when introduced to the “P3 boys” but admittedly, Stepan was not Tiffany’s instant “favorite” of the group as he was notorious for giving out the tough tasks. It wasn’t until Tiffany and her friend Ana forced Dr. Rey to include them in his research where their friendship began. Stepan was assigned to teach the girls the ins and outs of the project and inevitably was forced to spend many hours together collecting and analyzing the data and creating posters to present at various conferences. From Kappa Psi events to “conferencing” their friendship continued to grow. It wasn’t until a trip to Tampa that their friendship grew into something more. They kept their new relationship a secret, with his name changed to “B🍕🔥” in Tiffany’s phone, and before they knew it Stepan was off to complete his residency in New Jersey. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving their secret was revealed and they became “Instagram-official” after Tiffany visited Stepan and they spent the day in NYC together. After a long year apart, Stepan moved home and unofficially lived part-time with Tiffany and her roommates for the next year living their best lives enjoying all that Miami had to offer. Before long, they were back to living long-distance as Tiffany went to complete her residency in Charleston, SC. Two years later with many visits in between, Tiffany set sights on returning home and they were finally going to live together with their new puppy, Magnolia. After another year living in Miami, they finally became homeowners in 2020 and are excited for this next chapter of their lives together.

May 8, 2021, we were heading to brunch for what I thought was to celebrate Mother’s Day and his mom’s birthday with his parents and little sister. We have been together for six years and living together for two so anyone close to us had to endure my constant hinting as to when he would pop the question as it was often discussed and we all knew it was only a matter of time. On this particular day, however, I thought there was no way it would happen- my dad had a prior work commitment and we had always discussed involving both of our families in the celebrations whenever it did happen. We took his mom to this beach-side restaurant (which he somehow made me feel like I picked out and planned) and once we sat down he excused himself to go to the restroom. I continued to catch up with his mom and sister and next thing I know he was walking back to the table with my parents holding a bundle of balloons, my twin sister and my 2-year-old niece holding the ring box. My niece handed the box to me and it finally clicked what was actually happening. He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, using my full name in front of our loved ones, just as I had always dreamed. It was the best surprise and day I could’ve ever imagined.