How We Met
Our story began in June 2013 at the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware. It was the summer before my junior year at the United States Naval Academy. Molly and I were both going to the festival with our friends to enjoy the music. On the first night, at the Calvin Harris concert, I saw Molly in the cutest pink dress, and knew I had to talk to her! After finding out we had a mutual friend, we realized we didn’t live too far from to each other and I could tell that Molly was immediately smitten with me. After enjoying the concert, we hung out a few times and got to know each other. Throughout the rest of the summer we became good friends. As winter approached, and I attended Molly’s Yule Ball at Swarthmore College, Molly decided she wanted us to be official. What Molly wants she gets! Junior and Senior years were a happy blur — I drove up to Swarthmore every weekend from the Naval Academy to see Molly, and we spent the summer together. In 2015, I found out that, after my first deployment, I would be stationed in Norfolk on the USS George Washington. I asked Molly to move to Virginia Beach with me after graduation, and she said yes!
Our first year in Virginia Beach wasn’t easy — I was underway half the time, and Molly was working hard to build her photography business from the ground up. But we both cherished the time we were able to spend together, worked hard, bought a house, made new friends, and as the year progressed, Virginia Beach began to feel more like home.
how they asked
As 2017 approached, I knew I wanted to do something special for Molly for Valentine’s Day. We had been talking about getting a dog for a few months now, and I decided I wanted to get her a puppy. But not just any puppy, it had to be the perfect puppy. And when I saw Charlie, I knew he was the one. So we put a deposit down on the four day old pup and decided that Charlie was going to be her Valentine’s Day present.
Over the next 9 weeks, we watched little Charles Pumpernickel Meister (@ourcharliepoo) grow, and on April 11th, after weeks of anticipation, Charlie was supposed to fly from Florida to Virginia Beach, where we would meet him for the first time and finally bring him home. I asked Molly to hire one of her photographer friends to photograph Charlie’s homecoming, and decided it would be the perfect opportunity to propose. Little did Molly know, over the past few months I had been working with Susie Saltzman to design the perfect ring for her, and under the guise of a Valentine’s Day gift, I was able to get the love of my life to say yes as we added one fluffy new member to our little family!
