Maddie and Andrew met back in early 2020. Maddie would visit her good friend in Enfield, CT from time to time, and started attending family events with her. This is how Maddie met her friend's brother-in-law, Andrew.

Forming a love connection was not on either one of their minds at that time, but they enjoyed catching up through casual conversation here and there throughout the years.

In October of 2022, they spent a lot of time chatting at Andrew's nephew's birthday party. As Andrew was leaving, Maddie's friend (who had been planting seeds to her about what a great pair they would make) "persuaded" the two to hug, and that hug ignited a spark.

After a few months, Andrew decided to take his shot by sending Maddie a Facebook message. Unfortunately for Andrew (and for Maddie), Maddie is absolutely terrible at checking for and responding to messages (her words, and many people reading this know this to be true) so Drew's message landed in an abyss of unread messages.

But he did not give up hope! Instead, he devised a plan to throw a family birthday party and have Maddie be invited through her friend so that he could "corner her" (his words) and ask her out on a date.

Luckily for him, no cornering at a family dinner party was necessary. Maddie received some "intel" a few days before the party that she should check her messages for a very specific message from a very specific someone. Maddie used the party as her excuse to immediately send a message to Andrew in which she also profusely apologized for not responding to his earlier message. The chat took off.

In their early messages, they quickly discovered two things: 1. They really enjoyed having a conversation together and 2. They're both extreme nerds. This led Andrew to invite Maddie to see the Dungeons and Dragons movie after the party that weekend. We know, super romantic first date- a perfect 20 if you ask us. IYKYK.

Despite a few hilarious hiccups at the party and both of them falling asleep at separate times during the movie (those recliners are too darn comfortable), they had an amazing time and knew that they wanted to see where things went even if there was a little geographical distance between them. The rest is history.

For Christmas of 2023, Andrew gave Maddie the most mediocre gift she's ever received - a trip to Maui.

Andrew pulled out all the stops for this trip: a room at the Ritz-Carlton, massages at the spa, various excursions, lavish dinners, omelets with tons of goat cheese.... How could Maddie possibly answer "No"?

On Christmas Eve they went for a walk along the coast, and Andrew found the perfect spot to pop the question, and he guised it as the perfect place to set up a tripod and take a picture. Maddie gets asked a lot of questions (especially as a teacher), and this was the easiest question she's ever had to answer.