How We Met
Anthony and I started out with a bit of a modern love story– we met online. Anthony told me later that he hadn’t been on his online dating profile in weeks, and I was about to delete mine because I just wasn’t finding what I was looking for. Then I saw Anthony on there. He had such perfect blue eyes and an amazing smile and I just knew I had to talk to him. And after that we talked, and talked. For hours. The very next day we had our first date, on March 5, 2012. Our first date didn’t have any awkwardness at all; it just felt like we were supposed to be together. After that, we were inseparable. We could talk for hours and never get bored (and still do).
After seeing each other practically every day for three weeks, Anthony invited me to go with him and his family (whom I had already met) to see Peter Nero and the Philly Pops in concert at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Later that evening, while hanging out back at Anthony’s house, he asked me to officially be his girlfriend. This date, March 25, 2012, is our anniversary date.
Anthony and I always express our love to each other. From that very first moment, there was just something special between us. We’ve been told time and time again by people that we have “chemistry” and that we have that “once in a lifetime” kind of love. We wholeheartedly believe that, and that’s why our relationship has been so smooth, with each day being better than the one before.
how they asked
I’m the type of person who can always figure out what’s going on, a “nothing gets by me” kind of girl. But Anthony knows me so well that he was able to catch me off guard and surprise me with his proposal. We moved into our first apartment together on January 16, 2015, so this Christmas and New Year were extra special because they were the first ones we’d be celebrating in our own place, even though we’d been here almost a year now. Christmas was great in our home, and Anthony surprised me the week before by telling me that he got tickets for us to go see the Christmas display at Longwood Gardens (which I had been dying to do) on December 27. Being the end of the year, I was feeling nostalgic. I have a hat box filled with movie tickets, memorabilia, and all sorts of other things from our relationship, beginning with the tickets to Peter Nero on the day we officially became a couple. After we went to Longwood Gardens, I suggested to Anthony that we look through this box and reminisce on our memories together as I put the map and program from Longwood in there. We did, and had a great time looking back on our 3 years and 9 months of being a couple.
Then New Years Eve came. I had mentioned a fancy Italian restaurant near our house that we could go to, but I never looked into making reservations or anything. Then Anthony told me that he had done it for us, and we had reservations at 7:30. We got dressed up and had a fabulous dinner, then headed back home to ring in the new year together in the comfort of our home. After an hour or so of just sitting around talking, I went into the bathroom to take off my makeup and put on comfortable clothes. When I came back out into the living room, Anthony had the hat box sitting on our coffee table, along with a bottle of champagne, which he had already uncorked and poured into glasses. I looked at him, confused. “What are we doing with the box?” I asked. He told me he wanted to look through our memories. “But we already did that a few days ago…” I said. His response was that maybe there were some new memories in there now. When I opened the box, there it was– a ring box from Jared’s. I opened it in awe and my heart filled with overwhelming joy as the man of my dreams asked me to be his wife and slipped the ring onto my finger. I couldn’t believe it. He had pulled off the ultimate surprise, and we rang in 2016 as a newly engaged couple.
