We can't wait to celebrate with you!

After finishing college, Jake moved back to the Garden State to work on political campaigns. While he was there, he reconnected with his cousin Alex, who was halfway through a two-year research fellowship at Princeton University. Less than a year apart in age and both only children, Jake and Alex were more like siblings than cousins, and they got even closer while living in the same place for the first time. The next summer, Claire moved to Princeton to take over Alex’s job. During her onboarding, Claire and Alex became close friends, and in August she decided to join Alex for a trip up Route 1 to visit her cousin. Claire and Jake first met at a folding table in New Brunswick, where Jake was building skateboards to give away to at-risk kids at a summer program he was running. Despite knowing nothing about skateboarding, Claire jumped in to help. By the end of the afternoon we knew we got along, but weren’t sure how often we’d see each other once Alex left Princeton. Over the rest of summer and into the fall, we kept meeting up at events, but only as friends. Everyone else could tell we were falling in love, but somehow we were the last to know. Eventually, after eight months we started officially dating. Over the next year, Jake moved to Trenton, got a new job, and launched Freedom Skate Park, the nonprofit he still runs. Meanwhile, Claire was applying for Ph.D. programs. Claire had always wanted to live in New York City, so even though she had choices, it was clear from the moment she got accepted that she was going to go to NYU. So began Jake’s long-standing, begrudging partnership with NJ Transit. Between working full time in Trenton and running Freedom events on Saturdays, Jake was constantly riding the Northeast Corridor line during Claire’s first semester at NYU. While we now live together in the City, Jake is still a regular on NJ Transit, often going down to Jersey to visit family and run events at Freedom. A few weeks into Claire’s second semester of grad school, the COVID-19 pandemic put everything on hold. Once it became clear that this was going to be more than just two weeks of working from home, Jake strapped on a mask sewed out of pillow cases and hair ties and hopped in his Honda to rescue Claire from Manhattan for a short stay with her parents and sister in Massachusetts (after 10-day quarantine). That “short stay” ended up lasting three months. While neither of us ever expected to live with either of our families for that long, it was a great opportunity for us to test-drive living together and for Jake to get to know Claire’s family. It was also the first time we stayed at Claire’s family house on Cape Cod, which you’ll also get to visit soon, since that’s where we’re getting married! Since we still liked each other after three months of quarantining together while dealing with the double stressors of the pandemic and isolation, we figured that when Claire’s lease ended we should get a place together. So, in the summer of 2020, we moved to Brooklyn. We spent a pandemic year in Prospect Heights watching Marvel movies, bundling up for out-door dining in below freezing weather, and getting together with friends for socially distanced wine and cheese in Prospect Park. Once we got our vaccines and New York started to come back to life, we moved to Williamsburg. Now that we’re regulars at the best pizza place (Rosa’s), the best bar (Golden Years), and the best skate spot (Monument) in the City, we’ve made this neighborhood our home. As we look ahead to Claire’s last year of graduate school, we’re excited to make this lifelong commitment to love and support each other no matter what life throws our way. We’ve been through a lot of life together already, and through it all we’ve been teammates and partners. We don’t know what the future holds, but we’re excited to navigate it together, and we can’t wait to celebrate that commitment with you!