My Father, Peter, met Brandon's parents, Michael and Natalie, in December of 2007. They met at a Christmas party, bonded over shared heritage, and joked that they should have an arranged marriage between their children. My dad joked saying, "but I have two really great daughters!" To which Natalie replied "and I have two really great sons!"

On April 4, 2008 I met Brandon at a party one of our friends was hosting. I had already been at the party for a few hours before Brandon showed up, I would later come to know that this was standard.. he was not just driving in from Rhode Island. When Brandon walked down the stairs towards me I had one of those moments I would from this point further call "Big Fish moments". Have you seen Big Fish? When Edward Bloom sees his future wife for the first time he is at a circus. Time stops as the quote "they say when you meet the love of your life, time stops", resounds through. Edward passes through frozen acrobats, elephants, pushes aside pieces of floating popcorn. Brandon came down the stairs, and before I could even blink he was standing in front of me saying "I'm Brandon" with his hand stretched out for me to shake. And before I could blink again, he was gone. Moving through the party, with a huge smile on his face.

A week later we went on our first date.

Brandon's mother's side of the family always alternates who hosts Christmas Eve. In 2013 it was Brandon's family's year to host. Brandon's mother purchased a gift for each family, as a thank you for attending. It was a mistletoe; with a crystal base and the mistletoe part on top. Natalie showed these gifts to me earlier on in the week to ask me if I liked them and if I thought everyone else would like them. What I didn't know is that Brandon and his dad had hidden a very special surprise in one of them for me. So at the end of the night, after secretly asking my father if he could marry me, Brandon passed these gifts out, one to each family. He handed me one and I told him to give it to my sister, "let her open it, I already know what it is", to which he replied "you need to open this one." So I took the box, opened the wrapping paper just enough to be able to open the lid, opened the lid quickly, said "its very nice", and closed it. Brandon had been watching me the entire time and he said, "take it out let me see it, do you like it?" and I just kept saying that I had already seen it and "yes, yes, its very nice". So he kept asking me to take it out and look at it, and finally he took it from me and took it out of the box. I still at this point had not figured anything out. It wasn't until Brandon pointed directly at the ring that I actually noticed it! And my response was, "this is not funny, give that ring back, who does that belong to". I finally understood what was going on when Brandon got down on one knee and asked if I would marry him. He designed the ring with five diamonds, for the five years we had been together when he asked me. Every Christmas Eve from now one, will be extra special to us.