We're getting married!

In a perfect world, Maddy and I would’ve met on a quiet beach at sunset...the kind of moment where time slows down, the ocean breeze carries just the right amount of salt, and two strangers lock eyes and instantly fall in love. Cue the violins, the slow motion, and maybe a German Shepherd running in the background. But in reality? We re-met over Hinge — the app that boldly claims to be designed to be deleted. And to its credit, it did its job. Very quickly, we found ourselves attached — not just to our phones — but to the long, thoughtful, laugh-out-loud (and occasionally typo-ridden) novels we’d send each other daily. Prior to meeting in person, we shared stories about our lives, swapped frustrations and funny moments, and bonded over the little things that slowly started to feel like big things. We chatted like this for months, building a connection entirely through text — until, one day, a glitch in the romantic comedy that is T-Mobile caused one of Maddy’s signature paragraphs to disappear into the digital abyss. Matt, unsure if he’d been ghosted or if her phone had just exploded from excessive character count, decided to be brave and send a simple follow-up: “Good luck on the interview in Ithaca.” That message — which turned out to be more than just brave, but perfectly timed — sparked Maddy’s reply. And not long after, as the holidays approached, she sent a message that would change everything: she asked Matt out on a date. In a twist of fate and spotty reception, all of Maddy’s previously lost Thanksgiving texts came flooding in — just in time for a dinner date at The Washington House in Basking Ridge, NJ. And the rest, as they say, is history. A history that started not on a beach at sunset, but in the wonderfully modern magic of algorithms, awkward timing, and a little perseverance.