Our story begins in September 2018. We had both just wrapped up the summer after graduating from college and were on very different paths. Jonathan was working on starting his career whereas Vanessa had already enrolled back at UMass Lowell to get her second Bachelors Degree. Both of us were swiping on the dating app Hinge and had been through a few failed matches before we came across eachother.

Vanessa was out celebrating her friend Ashley's birthday at their favorite stomping ground in their prime (Smokehouse in Lowell) when Jonny shot his shot with a message he sent in between sets at the gym.

The message sent was one that only Jonny would send to someone he was trying to date. Not the typical "hey", "how are you?" or even "what's up?".

Nope. Kid just went for it and said "what video games do you play?". Luckily, Vanessa had the right answer with Nintendo games and the rest is history.

From that point until now, our time together has been filled with so many big events and milestones. We've taken many trips together, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Antonio (and even a couple to Disney and North Conway too ;) ). In addition to our niece Annie and nephew James, we welcomed our nieces Brynn and Georgia as well as our nephew and godson Brooks into our lives. For pets, we said goodbye to our sweet Spencer and Skinny, but added our sweet old lady Margo to our family. Don't worry, we still go to see our Bailey and Willow every chance we get! We went from sharing Jonny's bedroom at his parents house, to our 1st apartment, and even to our 1st and forever home right down the street from where we got engaged.

Believe it or not, Jonny could not keep our engagement a secret. If you know Jonny, he is obsessed with having everything in his calendar on his phone.... He may or may not have been showing Vanessa something when a calendar alert popped up saying "pick up the ring". Vanessa played it cool and Jonny didn't know she saw that until a few weeks before the engagement. All the while he had been working hard to figure out a way to make the day very special. He called each of Vanessa's siblings and her mother to ask for their blessing before he would ask. This worked out great for him since her sister Ashley helped him come up with a plan. While Ashley had rented a beach house on Seabrook Beach, she was going to have everyone dress up so Vanessa could take family photos for her. She snapped a few photos before their niece Brynn decided it was time to play in the sand. He took that opportunity to take our oldest niece, Annie, who has been dying for us to get married since she was 3 years old, and tell her the plan. We went down by the water where he had Annie hand him the ring and he popped the question!

Fun facts about our engagement:

-The exact spot Jonny proposed was right in front of the beach cottage he had vacationed at with his family when he was little.

-The date, August 20th, was actually Vanessa's Yiayia and Papou's wedding anniversary.

Neither of these things were planned!