Sixteen years ago at a bowling alley in Omaha, freshmen Molly and Anthony met at a group hangout. While Anthony remembers confidently introducing himself to her, Molly does not, but instead remembers their first encounter at a Prep hosted French Convention where they spent the day practicing their French for extra credit. Over their high school careers they built their friendship on sarcasm, height differences, music, love of Invader Zim, and the fact they both have distant relatives that signed the Declaration of Independence. While there were a few missed chances to date (Anthony asked Molly to senior homecoming a day after she already agreed to go with a friend) the friendship bond was a strong one and they continued to be friends into college.

Both having Irish heritage, they always joked about going on a study abroad trip to Ireland together while attending the business college at UNO. But life had different plans and Molly ended up hating business classes (sorry Anthony) and went the Art Education route instead. Even though they didn’t share the same classes, their friendship continued to grow stronger, to the point that they both considered each other best friends. But then as fate has it, in their senior year of college Anthony found out that the business study abroad class was going to Ireland. While initially Molly was jealous he would be going to Ireland, Anthony informed her that if she reached out to the teacher, she would be able to join the class and go as well. This trip was an incredible bonding moment for them that solidified their friendship even more and brought a new friend into their lives as well.

College diplomas in hand and eight years of friendship later, Molly’s family could see more to their friendship than either of them had. Her sister being an instigator was ‘subtly’ dropping hints that Anthony could potentially be more than just a friend for her. While Molly doubted that they were anything more than friends, Anthony had been thinking the same way her sister had about their friendship. Anthony worked up the courage to take their friendship to the next level and asked Molly to go out to sushi one night. Molly being oblivious to this being more than a friendly hangout, said she couldn’t go but suggested he ask another friend to go instead. This made for an awkward instance of Anthony having to explain his true intentions to Molly that this was in fact a date. Once realized, she happily accepted and they had a lovely dinner together and went to see a movie after.

Over the following eight years, Molly and Anthony’s relationship bloomed into an incredible life together full of adventures, dog parenthood, and happiness. Their first ever vacation together was found by a Google search to a lovely spot in Colorado called Avalanche Ranch. They absolutely fell in love with the magic of the place and go back their often (it’s even where they got their engagement photos taken!) On their many travels over the years, Anthony loves to take Molly to distilleries to try local whiskeys and Molly loves to take Anthony to museums and talk about art.

In April of 2024, Molly got to tag along with Anthony on a work trip to London. They decided at the end of the trip to stay an extra day and take the train to Paris. This was supposed to be a one-day train ride there and train ride back situation, but Anthony surprised Molly the night before the trip that he had changed the flights so they would actually be spending the night in Paris. This instinctively set Molly’s suspicions wild (being the planner of the two, you can understand why). While sight-seeing in Paris, they went to the Eiffel Tower where security stopped Anthony because the ring box in his pocket set off the metal detector. He was adamant to not bring the box out and felt because of this he was surely going to get arrested in Paris. Thankfully that didn’t happen and after a third time through the metal detector security waved him on. The rest of the day Molly continued to crack jokes and voice her suspicions of Anthony proposing (okay, honestly I was a bit of a brat about it, but you would have been too if you were in my position!) After touring around Paris for the day Anthony surprised Molly by telling her he had dinner plans for them. He led her back to the Eiffel Tower where he had a reservation for the Madam Brasserie restaurant inside. The dinner was amazing but right before dessert and after two (TWO!) other engagements taking place, a server brought out a ring on a tray, Anthony got down on one knee and asked Molly to marry him, to which she excitedly said yes!

There have been many wonderful moments leading up to this one, but we’re very much looking forward to the amazing moment where we say, ‘I do’ and celebrate with our friends and family!