Three years ago, Tofer and Stefanie didn't know each other existed. They went about their lives as math teachers, living about a mile apart from each other, and getting sick of the world of dating.

This is their story.

Stefanie would come home from work, and occasionally join her friends in walking around Horn Pond for companionship and exercise. Tofer would come home, and put on his binoculars, to scope out the bird life at Horn Pond and the surrounding trails.

Tofer had, for the last several years, made a cranberry curd pie for Thanksgiving, with a delicious ginger-snap walnut crust. Stefanie had become an expert at making the same pie, to the point where it became THE pie to make for birthdays and holidays, no matter the time of year.

Both Tofer and Stefanie found themselves standing with the crowd at Fenway Park in April of 2013, as Big Papi reminded us that this was our F'ing city, and we could be strong together after the marathon bombings.

But they did all of those things separately—until they found each other. And in their typically surprising fashion, managed to connect simultaneously on two different dating apps, because one just wouldn't be epic enough for them. These two math teachers met for the first time on October 3, 2022, at the Lord Hobo brewery in Woburn, the town where they were both living.

During that first date, talking was easy, and the time melted away before they knew it. Tofer scared Stef with his exceptionally loud laugh. They talked about their pets, and their last names, and their shared experiences as math teachers, and countless other shared connections, until the school night date began to press into teacher sleep time.

It wasn’t long before their individual walks at Horn Pond became shared adventures, planning for a safari a year and a half away, sharing puzzles, and introducing each other to new games and activities. Tofer introduced Stefanie to binoculars and shared his obsession with birds with her (to a lesser extent, especially considering the early hours it requires). Stefanie shared her love of cats, their weird behaviors, and her enjoyment of Gordon Ramsay’s cooking shows.

They have discovered restaurants together, traveled to Colorado, Maine, Florida, and Georgia within the US, and spent three weeks on safari in Kenya and Tanzania, all without getting sick of each other. They weathered Tofer moving into Stefanie’s condo, merging their fur-families, and losing Winston to cancer six months later.

Last July, just before their big trip to Africa, Tofer took Stefanie on a walk at Horn Pond, and into an area they both love, full of dappled light filtered through a forest of white pines, and got down on one knee to ask her to take his hand in marriage. And three years from the day they had their first date, October 3, 2025, they’ll stand together to do just that.

This is our story. Thank you for being a part of it.

S&T

Wedding Day