How We Met
Everyone always asks us how we met and for us that can be a complicated answer! Our families go back generations. Our grandparents were best friends. I grew up around Steven’s cousins because his aunt and my mother are best friends. We’ve known of each other for our whole lives but it wasn’t until the summer of 2012 that we started to hang out. It was the fourth of July. Steven was home for the summer between undergrad and grad school and I lived at home. We both ended up at the same fourth of July event where Steven insists that I flirted with him first, but we all know better…it was him. The following weekend, both of our families were going to the same beach and Steven “needed a ride” from me. That’s when it all set into motion. We talked in the car for two hours, flirted for days, and had our first unofficial date at Bailyanna Vineyard with two of his aunts and uncles, the very place he would take me back to 3 years later to propose.
how they asked
Our families go back, way back. Our grandparents were best friends. Steven jokes that our marriage was arranged. I say it was fate set in motion long before our parents existed.
In summer 2012 our families were at the beach together. His aunts and uncles invited us to go wine tasting, we went to two wineries and played bocce at the second one. That was our first unofficial date.
We were scandalous. Our big fat Italian families were gossiping back and forth about us! We didn’t care, two weeks later, we were official.
For our 3 year anniversary, I told him take me somewhere and surprise me. He pretended to have no plans. I wasn’t thrilled and to top it off about a week before I found out his friend was proposing to his girlfriend of one year and I wanted it to be our turn. (I saw the ring in a text Steven sent me, it was gorgeous but not her style) Steven had me convinced he was far from ready, all the while I was complaining to my girlfriend, Elena, about it.
On August 1 he told me we were going to two wineries at the beach to celebrate our three year anniversary, which falls on August 2nd. Classic us, we do a lot of wine tasting! I recognized the first winery. It was the first winery from our first unofficial date. He told me he picked it because they had food and he knew I would be ready for lunch. We went in and I kept looking at his pocket for no particular reason.
Steven took me to the second winery and I recognized the bocce court immediately. He told me it was recommended by a friend and coincidence that it was the second winery with the bocce court from our first unofficial date. Gullible me, I believed it.
After wine tasting, he brought me to the vines where I wanted an anniversary photo (like always)! He insisted on taking one of me first, so he set my stuff down and fiddled with his phone. Before I knew it, he was down on one knee with a ring! It was a whirlwind few minutes…he grabbed my right hand on accident, people were cheering in the background (all the bocce players had been watching us), he could hardly get out more than a few sentences, I said YES and after we finally looked up, there was my friend Elena and her husband Mike taking photos!
After a few minutes, he asked me if I recognized the ring…it was the one from the text! His friend wasn’t proposing, he sent me photos of MY ring by mistake! Good story Steven!
He had thought for sure that he ruined it but nope, I had no clue. He took me to the place of our first unofficial date and proposed. Best. Day. Ever.