Long before they became the couple everyone loved to connect to The Little Mermaid (Ariel and Prince Eric, anyone?), Eric and Ariel first met while attending Tufts University. They lived on the same floor freshman year, but Eric's busy football schedule kept him away from a lot of the shared dorm activities (though the two did share their first intro English class together!), and Ariel was busy becoming fast friends with two of her future bridesmaids. Sophomore year they lived in the same dorm on separate floors, and as Eric shifted his athletic pursuits from football to karate, Ariel was still trying to find the right extracurricular fit and settle on a major... It wasn't until their junior year, when both had firmly decided to pursue the same major (for Eric, his second after psychology), that the two found themselves in a lot of the same Economics classes, and coincidentally, living on the same street! Luckily Ariel's I'm-reading-the-Tufts-Daily-don't-bother-me-RBF face didn't put Eric off too much during that first microecon class, and the two soon became study buddies. From there they both learned of each other's (intense nerdom and) love of Japanese cartoons and comics, and spent hours chatting about their favorite series and characters in Ariel's dining room (sooo romantic!).

When Eric first asked Ariel out, she, confused and taking a minute to decipher the question as she'd never been asked on a date before, managed to respond with a "yeah, sure!", for which she has been perpetually mocked ever since. From seeing a Gilbert and Sullivan opera in Harvard Square, watching Final Fantasy Advent Children in Eric's apartment and chatting until 3am, having mini dinner dates at Carmichael dining hall, to somehow, despite not talking about it at all until courses were finalized, having nearly identical class schedules through the end of senior year, the two enjoyed spending time together and getting to know more about each other, their (soon to be mutual) friends and their families. Eric's cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor perfectly suits (and continues to suit) Ariel's more...stress-prone personality, and Ariel steadfastly believes that Eric's hugs contain magical healing properties to sooth all wounds, mental or physical.

Their relationship survived multiple long-distance stints (a year after college when Ariel moved to CT while Eric remained in MA, then again recently when Ariel completed her MBA in NYC), as well as a much more tolerable version in MA where Ariel lived below the Charles River and Eric lived above (anyone from Greater Boston knows that no one likes schlepping to the other side).

Ariel had talked about wanting to be proposed to somewhere in Boston, but while she was completing her graduate studies in NYC, Eric decided he couldn't wait any longer, so instead proposed in the closest Boston-y replica he could, which he found in Brooklyn Bridge Park on July 23, 2016. (she responded with something other than "yeah, sure" this time, which Eric feels was a serious waste of comedic potential)