Chijioke and Debra actually first met in 2011! She was a college student at UPenn in Philadelphia, visiting her sister, Dionne, for the weekend, who was a medical student at Pitt. They decided to go out one evening, and Dionne mentioned that she had some friends from school that they could meet up with later. Chijioke, a dental student, and his friend, a dental resident, both at Pitt, met the group at the door, and it was there that Dionne introduced Debra to Chijioke. Chijioke thought she was beautiful, and jokingly said to Debra, "I think I found my wife, oh!" Debra thought he was handsome, so she laughed at the comment, shrugged it off, and continued into the venue with the group. The two continued to chat throughout the night and hit it off, by the end of the night they exchanged numbers, but never reached out to each other. A year later, Debra started medical school at Pitt and became friends with a wonderful group of girls, including Amarachi. As they got to know each other, Amarachi mentioned that she had an older brother who was a dental student at Pitt. One day, while at school, Amarachi brought her brother over to introduce him to their group of friends. As soon as Debra saw him, she immediately recognized who he was. It was Chijioke, the guy she met a year earlier at the party.

Fast forward 7 years (yes, 7 years?!) and both Debra and Chijioke are single. Chijioke and Debra chatted a few times over the years but nothing came about. One day, Debra happened to be leaving work, when she received a text from Amarachi. In the text, Amarachi expressed that she thought Chijioke and Debra would make a good match and wanted to give her brother her number but only if Debra was interested. Debra thought about it and talked it over with those who know her best. She knew she was interested and felt that this conversation may be God opening her eyes and heart to the missed opportunities of the past. So she agreed, and the rest is history :)

Debra traveled to Nashville to visit Chijioke and celebrate their 1-year anniversary. Chijioke had planned the day for them to go to brunch and then the Frist Art Museum. After walking around a few of the exhibits, Chijioke guided Debra to the statue exhibit. There, they went through several of the different statues and talked about what they thought the underlying meaning was. At the end of the room, they stopped at a statue of a man's head with a boat on the top of his head, and book at the bottom. Chijioke asked Debra what she thought it meant. She explained that to her it looked as though the man wanted to explore the world but also was focused on studying and getting his work done. Chijioke agreed, and then said that he felt as though he could relate to the statue, that he has been so focused on work that he's ready to explore the world and wanted to explore the world with Debra. He then got down on one knee and asked her to marry him, and she said yes!