Amanda and Artie went to Johns Hopkins University where they both studied Mechanical Engineering. They knew of each other through Amanda’s sister Ashley, but didn’t actually meet until one fateful night in a fraternity basement in 2014. Artie was trying to match his college roommate with Amanda’s sorority sister and hatched a plan with Amanda to get them together. After successfully playing match-maker, Artie and Amanda started to get to know each other; little did they know that their lives would be changed forever.

Their first date perfectly encapsulated the past 8 years of Amanda and Artie's relationship. Amanda lost the keys to her apartment an hour before the date, which resulted in them running around campus trying to find them. Artie had to figure out how to pack 2 Epi-pens, lip balm, a metric ton of benadryl, an eyeglass case, floss, bubble gum, and an inhaler into her tiny purse. And this was before the date even started! Artie, a hopeless romantic at heart, chose the Cheesecake Factory in the Baltimore Inner Harbor for dinner. Right as they were seated, Amanda placed a small black flip phone in the middle of the table and revealed she was a volunteer for a campus resource hotline which may cause their date to be interrupted if someone called the hotline. Artie proceeded to stare at this phone for the duration of the date, dreading the moment where Amanda had to answer the phone. Thankfully, destiny prevailed: the phone didn’t ring.

The day of their proposal was the most special moment in Amanda and Artie’s lives. It was a warm and humid afternoon on Amanda’s family vacation in the tropical paradise of St. Thomas. Artie suggested to Amanda that they walk over early to family dinner to take some nice pictures of the sunset. As they approached the end of their walk, Artie told Amanda that he wanted to walk along the edge of the beach towards a gazebo in the distance to get a better shot of the sunset. As they got closer, Amanda could see a beautifully decorated gazebo with rose petals and framed pictures of them throughout their 7+ years of dating. And then it happened: 2583 days after that fateful date at the Cheesecake Factory Artie proposed to Amanda on the shores of St. Thomas.