How We Met
It was move in day Freshman Year of college, September 2010. I am moving into Millenium Hall ready to begin the next phase of my life. As I walk across the Lounge Area I see a girl with gorgeous blue eyes in a green hoodie. I had no idea who she was but thought she was stunningly beautiful. A few months later I come home from an Alumni event to my dorm room to find the mysterious Green Hoodie Girl sitting on my bed. Shocked, I am introduced to Cathryn by my roommate (who was best friends with one of Cathryn’s floor mates). I slowly befriend her, thinking I never had a shot, mainly because she seemed disinterested by relationships.
The following year Cathryn and I live down the hall from one another. Our friendship continues to grow as we have a lot of mutual friends. I would go hang out in her dorm room with her roommates, flirt occasionally, to continually be mystified that this girl had no idea I had a crush on her. Around Pre-Junior year I begin to think it’s a lost cause, that I would never get a girl like her. And we continued to become best friends through our Junior year. And one day, I decided it was time to give it another shot. I began to flirt a little bit more and so did she. We went on a “half-date” to go see a play in downtown Philadelphia and walked around Christmas Village. I kept looking for excuses to hold her hand, but never mustered the courage. We texted over the entire Christmas break, and I constantly wished to be talking to her face to face, and just to be with her. The day we returned from Winter Break I had a party for all of our friends to watch the Eagles Playoff game. After they lost and people began to filter out, Cathryn stayed behind. We sat on my couch and watched a movie. I put my arm around her, then looked her in the eyes, and knew it was now or never. I leaned in for a kiss, and to my utter surprise she leaned in to. From that first kiss, I knew she and I were meant to be. I still have the same butterflies every time I see her just like that day when she was nothing more than a green hoodie. She has always been the one for me, and I knew it before I even knew her name. Cathryn is the love of my life and I am so grateful that fate and brought us together and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with her.
how they asked
My amazing fiancé asked me to marry him in the most perfect and meaningful way. At the end of March 2017, I travelled to North Carolina for work for 4 weeks. Before I left, Ed gave me a box of letters to take with me: one for each day I was down there. I thought it was the sweetest gesture and read one every day before I went to work. They were really the best thing to keep me going whenever missing him became overwhelming.
While in North Carolina, he told me about an alumni event for the College of Business at Drexel University that was occurring soon after I got back and asked me to be his date. Of course I said yes and instantly put it on my calendar. Leading up to it, I asked what I should wear. He knew I had a new dress I had been dying to wear so he suggested that, sneakly getting me to dress up without making me think he had anything planned!
The day of the alumni event comes and I’m meeting him in Philly since he was helping to set up the event. I make my way to the Lebow Business Building and give him a call to let him know I was there and find out where to go. He has me go up to the 7th floor and follow the signs for the event. I get off the elevator and head through the double doors labelled for a private alumni event. When I walk through the doors, I see a room with a wall of floor to ceiling windows and a path of rose petals leading out to a balcony overlooking Center City, Philadelphia. On the balcony is a small table with flowers and Dobby – the teddy bear Ed gave me for our first Valentine’s Day – wearing a brand new suit and holding a letter. I also saw Ed looking at me with the most amazing and nervous look in his eyes. He greeted me and led me over to the table to give me the letter. When I opened it, it was titled “The Last Letter.” As I read it, he stood by me, with his arm around me. When I finished reading, he took my hands, and in one fluid movement, got down on one knee and pulled out the ring box. He then popped the question which I immediately answered with a yes!
The wonderful Kelli Wilke took pictures for us that really captured the amazing story. Ed asked me where I wanted to go to dinner afterwards. Naturally, I was too shocked to make any kind of decision so he said “I have an idea you’ll like.”
We hoped in a cab and went into Center City. We arrived at the Dandelion, a restaurant I had been wanting to go to for a while. As soon as I walked in, my mom ran at me and hugged me! He surprised me again by setting up a dinner with my mom, my dad and stepmom, his parents, and his brother to celebrate!
I had no idea he was going to propose that night. He worked on the letters for months leading up to his proposal letter and planned an entire event to propose. It was a complete surprise in the most perfect setting that celebrated the university where we met and the city we fell in love in. He is my absolute best friend and I cannot wait to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him!