How We Met
Tim and I had lived on the same lake in the finger lakes our whole life but we had never met each other. It wasn’t until St. Patricks Day in 2014 that we actually met. I had found out that I needed a couple of hip surgeries and that I would need to move back to New York for the summer to get them done. I was pretty bummed when I heard this and my friend suggested we just go out to the bars on St. Patricks Day and have fun. Tim just so happened to be bartending that night and I got talking to him throughout the evening. He told me he was opening a lot of businesses in the area and I told him I had to move back home to New York for the summer and was looking for a job. He reached out to me the next day and asked me when I wanted to start and gave me the job. At the time I was in a 4-year relationship but it was getting rocky and we both knew it wasn’t going to last. Leave it to my ex to decide to break up with me on my first day of work at one of Tim’s businesses. I was opening the Ice cream parlor that day and was obviously sad that a four-year relationship had just come to an end and knew my new boss wouldn’t be here for another hour or two. So I had the shop to myself and just let out a good cry to get it out of my system.
Of course, Tim decided to show up early that day and walked in on me crying. I really didn’t know Tim at all so having my new boss walk in on me just crying was a bit embarrassing. Tim was so sweet about it. He asked me what was wrong and said we had a little bit to just talk about it before the parlor opened. He then offered to take me out for some drinks after my shift so that I didn’t just go home to think about the breakup. We had an amazing night and I didn’t think up my ex or the breakup at all. We had food and drinks, laughed the whole night, played bar games, and played music until the bar closed.
The next day he asked if he could take me out to dinner after my work shift and I had so much fun the night before of course, I said yes. He told me to get dressed up and meet him at his cottage on the lake. He took me to dinner on the lake by boat and set up such a romantic evening for us. After a couple of months of dates and getting to know each other Tim finally asked me to be his girlfriend. But wait, it was his best friends birthday so he took back his question and asked if I could wait to answer at midnight so that our anniversary wasn’t the same day as his best friends birthday. That is how we got from the meeting on St. Patrick’s Day 2014 to dating on June 20, 2014, to engaged on December 18, 2017, and then getting married on June 20, 2020.
How They Asked
My fall clinical rotation was ending December 15, 2017. Tim knows how much I love Christmas and it has always been a dream of mine to go to NYC during Christmas time. Tim set up a couple day trip to NYC to celebrate my clinical rotation being done. Excited is an understatement. When we got to the city we wanted to go drop off our bag at a locker since our room where we were staying wasn’t ready yet. The first thing Tim had planned for us was to go see the Rockettes! The ROCKETTES?!? I’ve always watched them on TV for the Macy’s Day parade but never live before. And Tim was actually going to sit through a Rockette show? The day was already perfect and it was only noon. When we went to go drop off our bags before the show, Tim took his jacket off and put it in the locker. This seemed really strange to me because it was snowing and zero degrees out and we still had a couple of blocks to walk to get to Radio City Music Hall.
Tim insisted he was really hot and didn’t need a jacket. Little did I know there was a surprise in his jacket pocket and he didn’t know if it would set off the metal detector going into the show. The Rockette show was amazing! Even Tim enjoyed it. We went back to get our jackets and Tim said he had another surprise. We started walking toward Central Park and a horse and carriage pulled up to us. Little did I know it was ours. Wait really?! A horse and carriage ride through central park at Christmas time?! I felt like I was in a Christmas movie. When we got in the carriage I asked the driver if he could take our picture. Tim then interrupted and said he didn’t like the background and didn’t want a picture here. Really Tim? Since when have you ever cared what a background of a picture looked like. Of course, I was a bit annoyed, like any girl would be, but once the carriage ride started I lost the attitude. It was so perfect. There was a light snow falling from the sky and the horse had jingle bells and I was wrapped up with my boyfriend in a carriage going through Central Park. All of a sudden Tim asked the driver to stop because he liked the background a little better and said this was a good spot to take a picture. Again, really Tim? I rolled my eyes and went along with it and gave the driver my camera to take a picture.
Tim was off my right shoulder and behind me so I couldn’t really see him, but I knew something was off. The flash wasn’t going off and I kept smiling which seemed like forever. I started to mumble to Tim, “Does he know how to work the camera or is my camera broken?” Still no flash. I asked him if the flash was on and he said yes and I said, “Oh ok you can take the picture now.”
During all of this Tim was talking about how happy he is and thankful that we had met. It wasn’t that I was tuning him out but I was really concerned why the driver wasn’t taking our picture. I then hear, “Morgan I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I turned around to see Tim down on one knee and then I finally see the flash go off. OOOOOH, that’s why you weren’t taking the picture…..After 30 seconds of trying to collect my thoughts and realize what was happening, I had forgotten to give him an answer. But of course, I said YES. The driver took so many pictures for us and let us take pictures with the horse, Emma, as well. It was such a perfect day! But it wasn’t even over. Tim then took me to the Rockefeller tree and got us tickets to go ice skating in the rink under the tree! Now the day was perfect! We went out to dinner that night and called our parents to tell them the exciting news.
The next morning we woke up and Tim took me out for Mimosas and brunch (which is my favorite meal!) to celebrate. There is no way December 17th could have been any more perfect. I got to do everything any Christmas lover could imagine doing in NYC and got engaged on top of it all!
