Believe it or not, we met on a blind date at a Dave & Buster's fraternity mixer. For our French family, it's a giant, greasy arcade bar, full of teenagers on a sugar high - so not the most romantic start! We ended up chatting and playing arcade games for hours, collecting the most tickets of all the couples (maybe foreshadowing our competitive instincts?). We saw each other at parties and texted a little, but Adele wasn't sold on the chatty European yet. A few months and one awkward phone call later, Martin finally asked for a proper non-fraternity-coordinated date. We bonded over a love of the world's cheesiest lasagna, and the rest is history!
We had talked about eventually getting married, but it took a few years before we were both ready to make it happen. Unbeknownst to Adele, Martin had put his proposal plans into motion months in advance. On the first day of the annual ski trip with Martin's parents, we hit the slopes at Park City and warmed up on a few of our favorite runs. At the top of McConkey's lift overlooking Deer Valley, Martin suggested we take a few photos, then dropped to one knee to pop the question. If that weren't enough of a surprise, one by one the "strangers" standing around us pulled off their ski masks to reveal some of our closest friends who Martin had invited to celebrate. Although there were some obvious clues (hour-long "Chick Fil A" runs, packing champagne with the ski gear "to share with his parents", and Martin offering to pick up "his parents friends" from the airport), Adele had chalked them all up to Martin's eccentricities, and didn't suspect a thing!