How We Met
September 2012 – We had just started the fall semester of our junior year and it was one of our first weekends out and happened to be the UMass Baseball Alumni weekend. We met some of our guy friends downtown and I immediately noticed Mitch and asked one of our baseball friends who he was. About 10 minutes later, Mitch came up to me to introduce himself and offered to buy me a drink. The lights went on for the last call and I started rattling off facts about myself – had to make sure this cute guy remembered me! I was going home the next day, so he gave me his number. We talked on the phone every day and two weeks later, he came back to Amherst for our first date. I took him to one of my favorite tapas restaurants in Northampton. I should’ve known the bite-sized entrees wouldn’t fill this 6’5 guy up. We ended up getting Antonio’s Pizza for our second meal and the second date of the night. That weekend, he told me that the day before we met, he had decided to go back to UMass to finish his degree (he was drafted to play baseball his senior year), which meant we’d be going to school together spring semester. Perfect. Then he told me he had just signed his contract to go back to Sioux Falls, SD to play baseball for the summer, May-September. I went from excited and giddy about being at school together to nervous and bummed about him leaving so soon.
Six months later, he left the weekend after my 21st birthday. We cried and hugged until there wasn’t anything else to do but drive our separate ways and start our 8-week countdown until I’d visit in South Dakota. We knew we wanted to be together and weren’t going to let a little distance stop us. We made the most of it and to this day we reminisce about that summer, all the things we did and the places we saw. It’ll always be our favorite – something we were so afraid of, ended up paving the way for what would be our forever. We ended up graduating from UMass a year apart, spent a few years driving back and forth between Boston and CT, got a boxer puppy, and finally got engaged 7 years later, almost to the date of when we met. It wasn’t always easy, but it was definitely worth it.
How They Asked
We had just spent 6 amazing days in Italy with our family and finally made it to Switzerland. This country was out of a fairytale, somewhere I’d been dreaming of visiting my whole life. I had our entire trip itinerary planned down to a T – Airbnbs, restaurants and dinner reservations, train schedules, you name it. We came all this way and we were going to pack as much in as we could! On our second day, we arrived in Lauterbrunnen, the valley of waterfalls (72!). It was magical.
Cowbells ringing, people sitting outside sipping champagne and enjoying fondue, and flower fields for as far as you could see. We kept looking at eachother like “is this real life?!”. We decided to take the train into Grindelwald, a smaller, quaint ski village. It was the most beautiful, blue-bird October day, so we decided to get tickets to take the gondola to the top. We couldn’t get over the views and started walking along the trail.
We had been with our cousins the first half of the trip so we always had someone to take our picture – I told Mitch this was too good of a view to take a selfie and we should ask someone. Mitch walked away to ask a couple nearby and by the time he came back and I turned around, he was already down on one knee. I can’t remember everything he said, but I do know I’ll always remember that moment and how I couldn’t wait to say yes to forever with him. We laughed and cried and hugged while people walking by cheered and clapped.
Then we met the couple who took our pictures, they were so sweet and thankful to have been a part of this, and then we found out that the wife was actually a professional photographer in California. She asked for our emails and said she would send over some pictures to us that evening.
They’ll always be my favorite pictures of us. We celebrated with fondue and giant German beers up in the Swiss Alps and soaked it all in before we called our friends & family. Later that night, Mitch had made a dinner reservation for us where we had authentic Swiss food and champagne. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
The next morning we went to grab breakfast in Lauterbrunnen and ran into the couple who photographed us. We were in a completely different village 30 minutes away from where we got engaged, what are the chances!? From start to finish, it was the most amazing moment and truly the trip of a lifetime.
