Tara and Joseph were introduced to each other through mutual friends in early 2019. They texted for over 1.5 months before finally agreeing to a first date in April 2019 - at the classic Tailgaters on Merivale Road. Over the next few months they had plenty of local adventures and long conversations. Then, in August 2019, Joseph left for a five-week trip to Calabria and Tara moved to Belgium to begin a new career. They both left Canada thinking their ‘situationship’ would fade away.

While continuing on with their solo European adventures, Joseph could not give up his infatuation. They took advantage of being in the same time zone and remained in contact. After Joseph returned to Canada, he decided to listen to his gut and quickly booked a ticket to go back to Europe and visit Tara in Belgium. Once the initial excitement of seeing eachother again settled, Joseph realized one tiny issue - how was he going to explain to his friends and family that he was going to the random city of Brussels and that he was going to see someone (a girl) they had never even heard of. At the same time, Tara was trying to think of how to explain to her friends and family that this random guy she had never mentioned before was going to be coming all the way from Canada just to stay with her for a week. It didn’t make sense to anyone, including Tara and Joseph, but it ended up being the best life-changing decision.

Joseph decided that since their entire relationship really began in Europe, the best time to propose to Tara would be on another trip to Europe. So once their trip to Portugal in September 2022 was booked, Joseph began putting his proposal plan into action. He made sure to get everyone’s blessings, acquired a velvet travel bag just for the ring, and made sure to carry the ring with himself every day of the trip just in case a unique moment came up. Yes, for every day that they were in Portugal, Joseph carried around the ring.

It was their last day in Portugal before heading to Germany and Joseph realized he was running out of days to pop the question. Tara was clueless. She figured Joseph wouldn’t go through airport security trying to hide a ring and definitely wouldn’t carry a ring with him everywhere they went in Lisbon, one of the top European cities for pick-pocketers.

They had an amazing last day in Portugal - they went to the most western point of all of Europe, completed a wine tasting, went for a fancy dinner, and ended the evening at Tara’s favourite European bar, Delirium Cafe. As they walked back to their hotel, Tara kept going on and on about how amazing the day was but that she was now exhausted since it was 1am and that she wanted to call an Uber to take them back to the hotel. Joseph kept asking her to wait while they walked a little bit further and Tara, in typical Tara fashion, kept getting annoyed saying she was tired of the hills and wanted to order the Uber now. As Tara pulled out her phone and turned to see what square they were standing in for the pick up point, she sees Joseph down on one knee, holding the most beautiful ring. Joseph gave a heart-felt speech, they both cried, and Tara said yes.