We both travelled seperately to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for the FIFA World Cup in 2014. Mary went by herself and Ryan went with a group of friends, and everyone ended up staying at Books Hostel (lots of bias here, but it's the best hostel in the world). We spent a week watching soccer matches, exploring Rio, drinking caipirinhas, and basically having the best vacation ever.

After the World Cup we went back to our respective states but stayed in touch. We texted almost daily for 4 months but never made plans to visit one another. Then, as chance would have it, Ryan was sent up to Fishkill, NY for work. For some reason he decided he'd prefer to spend the weekend in Philadelphia rather than Fishkill, and we got another weekend of fun. We spent a few days eating cheesesteaks, showing off the Philly sights, and playing endless games of Mario Kart on Nintendo 64. (Mary won most of them, no matter what Ryan tells you)

After that first weekend we decided we should visit each other occasionally. Ryan came back up to Philly to go to a local museum's Lego exhibit, and Mary went down to Greenville a few weeks later for an Elton John concert. We decided trying long distance was wortha shot, and before you know it our occasional visits were every other weekend. We went on vacations together, met each others' families, and after a year were talking about moving in together.

After being promised a puppy, Mary moved down to Greenville. (It was definitely just because of the dog). 3 years, and a new house later, Ryan got a job in Knoxville, TN and we moved together. We quarantined together through the pandemic, and after months of being stuck in a house together, Ryan decided that he could do that forever. He proposed in Cabo San Lucas in the summer of 2020.

We decided to wait until late 2022 to get married in the hopes the pandemic would have subsided enough to celebrate in person. However we got too excited to start our lives as husband and wife and ended up eloping on September 10th 2021. We are so excited to spend our first anniversary having the celebration we envisioned with all of our loved ones!