Mary Catherine and Christopher had their first date in December 2020 in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Christopher had just completed his first semester of law school, and Mary Catherine was working as a nurse and in the middle of graduate school studying to become a nurse practitioner.

After an evening of getting to know each other that consisted of dinner and a walk by the river, the two of them quickly realized the connection they had on their (six-hour) first date in the small Bucks County town was something special. It didn’t take them long to schedule a second date and many more after.

What started as a few dinner dates later turned into many Phillies games, running Philadelphia’s Broad Street Run together, trips to places like Acadia National Park, Nashville, St. Louis, Baltimore, and many weekends with each other’s family in Ocean City, New Jersey.

And in December 2022, almost two years to the day of their first date, Christopher proposed to Mary Catherine in Cape May, New Jersey, in front of the Congress Hall Christmas tree.