Chris and Tal met on a snowy night in early January 2018. Chris was hosting a house party for Winter Carnival (a Laurier tradition). Tal was on a team that was invited, and she was very excited because the location was an apartment 2 doors down in her complex.

Upon Tal arriving, Chris immediately noticed the cute girl that walked in, and then asked his two roommates to help "wingman" him. A few drinks into the night and Chris worked up the courage to go introduce himself to Tal. She mentioned that she actually lived in the complex, and Chris couldn't help but blurt out, "so you're my hot neighbour!" Tal couldn't help but laugh and responded with, "well, I guess I am!"

We then became friends because Chris couldn't take a hint! After many hints dropped by Tal, Chris finally picked one up and we officially began dating May 24th, 2018.

The story of our engagement started in July of 2022, when Chris asked Tal's parents to go out for a beer at the brewery where Tal was working. She was busy working at the other end of the bar when Chris asked her parents for their blessing to ask Tal to marry him. Tal's mom immediately started to cry with joy, and she quickly had to pull herself together when Tal walked over to see if they needed anything else.

If there's one thing you know about Tal is that she loves to travel, so when Chris' parents asked if they wanted to go to Vancouver to visit family for Thanksgiving, she jumped at the chance! Chris thought she was crazy to want to fly back from visiting her sister and immediately jump on another plane, but she found the perfect flight and booked it. Tal had no idea that she had just picked the spot for her engagement!

On the morning of October 8th, we joined Chris' family for a lovely walk. After returning home, Chris said they forgot some ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner and asked Tal to join them on a quick grocery store run. Chris' brother began driving to the store, and asked that they quickly stop off at a beach his friend had told him about. Erik is an amateur photographer and he wanted to capture some photos of the sun on the water.

This was all a ploy to photograph the real reason they were there, for Chris and Tal's engagement!! Tal was so surprised, she had no idea it was coming!