Long story short, it all started off with a little bit of a set up through Eric's sister-in-law, Diana Harden. Emily and Diana worked together as school counselors in Harford County Public Schools and then when Diana moved to Baltimore County Public Schools, she kindly reached out to Emily when a position opened up at Dundalk High School. In 2018, Emily got her dream job as a College & Career Counselor and got to work with Diana as her Counseling Department Chair. They quickly become close friends. Who knew they would also become sister-in-laws! Emily has a lot to thank Diana for! Fast forward to 2019, Diana and Barb, Eric's Mom, has been scheming for quite a few months about a set-up between Eric and Emily. And that's when their love story began...

It was January 2020 and with Lamar Jackson as the quarterback, the Baltimore Ravens were HOT at the time! Emily decided to buy playoff tickets for her and her Dad. It just so happened that Diana's Dad had season tickets and she was going to the same game with Tyler AND Eric. Naturally, it made sense to meet up at a tailgate. Emily and Eric met for the first time (and Emily's Dad met Eric for the first time) at a Baltimore Raven's tailgate at Gameday Firehouse! Emily later texted Diana and said she thought Eric was cute. Eric told Diana that Emily "caught his eye." The Ravens might have lost horribly that night, but Eric and Emily certainly won!

Two weeks after the playoff game, Eric and Emily saw each other again at Eric's brother, Tyler's surprise 35th birthday party at Nepenthe Brewery in Hampden, which Diana had planned and invited Emily to. In a lot of ways this felt like their very first date because they really got to chat more! At one point later in the night, Eric and Emily even split off at a table by themselves at Holy Frijoles. Friends were even commenting that it looked like they were on their first date! Emily found out that night that Eric was taking ballroom dance lessons, which really sparked her interest! Emily loves to dance and took ballroom dance lessons in college. They decided to plan an official first date to go ballroom dancing the following Friday night! January 31, 2020 was Emily and Eric's first official date! They went to Limoncello for dinner and then Mobtown Ballroom for Friday night swing dancing! It was such a great time and a perfect first date! Emily and Eric go to Limoncello every year on their dating anniversary and have recently made it a double date with close friends. Last year they went with Maria and Josh. This year with Sarah and Rony- to also celebrate their engagement! They still haven't made it back to Mobtown but have been taking ballroom dance lessons with Emily's tap dance instructor, Patty! They are looking forward to showing off their moves on the dance floor at the wedding!

Emily and Eric continued to date in February and into March. Emily learned that Eric was into hiking and Eric took her on her first ever hike to Harper's Ferry on Saturday, March 14, 2020. Emily immediately fell in love with hiking and was so glad she could share this pastime with Eric! Little did they now, the world would change forever after that weekend when the COVID pandemic began and schools closed that following Monday, March 16th. Eric and Emily (and the rest of the country), were in disbelief and didn't know what the future would hold. However, Eric and Emily knew that they wanted to stay in touch. They texted every day and planned fun activities together to get to know each out. Eric is a huge movie buff (and Emily knows very little movies), and they had a lot of time on their hands, so Emily challenged Eric to recommend a movie to her every day and she would rate it using 5 stars. To this day, Emily has watched 111 new movies either recommended by Eric or for the first time with Eric and his son, Conner! Emily is a huge country music fan so she challenged him to listen to a new country song every day. She even made a playlist for him on Spotify. He also rated it using 5 stars. Thanks to Emily, Eric now shares a new love for country music and even introduced her to a country artist she wasn't familiar with yet- Niko Moon! Eric and Emily love going to country concerts now and have seen their 2 favorites, Niko Moon and Kip Moore, several times together and have even met them both in person! They even took a trip to Fort Lauderdale for the Tortuga Music Festival and got to see both artists there. Eric and Emily shared movies and music together through text for 2 months straight! Nevertheless, Emily and Eric both knew that in order to keep their relationship moving forward, they would need to figure out a way to meet in person. They finally decided to meet up on May 23rd for a trip to St. Michaels and Tilghman Island, which now happens to be their favorite local getaway spot! Emily and Eric found that although dating during a pandemic was challenging, it also gave them many opportunities for fun outdoor activities! Emily and Eric found the pandemic a blessing in disguise for them and their relationship. They were both able to slow down, were less busy, and could really spend the time to build a relationship that they might not have done pre-pandemic. The following weekend, Emily and Eric did a day trip for a hike at Cunningham Halls with Eric's son, Conner (who was 9 at the time). This was the first time Emily had really hung out with Conner and they immediately connected! Emily loved seeing Eric as a father to Conner as well. This was a huge turning point in Eric and Emily's relationship. Little did Emily know that Eric would be proposing in this very spot just a little over 3 years later... After several more day trip, outdoor dates, and their first trip together to Nana’s beach house in Bethany Beach, Emily and Eric called their relationship "official" on July 24, 2020!

Emily and Eric decided to expand their day trips and were excited to go on their first big vacation together to the Outer Banks with Emily's best friends, Casey and Kelly, and their significant others, Brendan and Russell, in August 2020. They still talk about that being one of the best weeks of their relationship so far! Emily is so glad Eric has become such good friends with her friends as well! Emily and Eric planned another amazing trip that fall, when the leaves were turning colors, just the two of them! Eric drove them in his beautiful blue Jeep through the winding roads of Blue Ridge Parkway during a gorgeous fall weekend in October. They did lots of hiking and visited breweries and wineries. It was a very memorable trip and only just the beginning of more adventures to come...

Fast forward to January 2021, Emily asked Eric to move in with him and Eric gladly accepted! Emily was excited to show Eric what city living was all about! They miss sharing time on their patio with their old next door neighbors, Angel and Daniela. Eric and Emily enjoy walking through Patterson Park and on the Canton Waterfront together. They found their favorite local bars and restaurants together, including Huck's, which is just a couple of blocks away. Their cheese curds are their favorite! They also love Pig & Rooster for a good Detroit style pizza and Gunther & Co. for a fancy night out! Emily and Eric especially enjoy hitting the bars for Ravens games. Eric joined the Merritt Clubs gym with Emily and they enjoy spending summers on their rooftop pool there together. Currently, Emily and Eric enjoy taking BodyPump classes twice a week at the gym to help get in shape for the wedding! Conner has really enjoyed city living too. His favorite thing to do is to have a picnic on at the Canton Waterfront Park and toss around the football with his Dad! He also loves Tutti Gusti Pizza and has found a new love for Chicken Tikka Masala at Jasa Kabob! Conner has also become a big fans of wings and his favorites are the lemon pepper wings at Huck's! He just started a 5 star rating system for wings too! Emily, Eric, and Conner have really enjoyed the city life but also look forward to a bigger place in Baltimore County with a yard and maybe a dog one day! For now, they are soaking up every minute of city living! In addition to life in Baltimore, Emily and Eric went on several more adventures in 2021 and 2022. In November 2021, Emily and Eric went to Fort Lauderdale for the Tortuga Music Festival to see some of their favorite country artists and soak up the Florida sun! Ironically, their favorite performance was Pit Bull and they got so close that they were only a few rows from the front! In April 2022, during Emily's Spring Break, Emily and Eric went on their biggest adventure to date- to Iceland!!! They both had Iceland at the top of their bucket list before even meeting each other so they knew this had to be their first international trip together! Emily and Eric had the best time exploring the land of Ice and Fire with Eric's best friend from work, Mike and his wife, Annie. They all quickly became close friends and travel companions! Emily and Eric especially can't wait to go back to the Blue Lagoon one day!

Here's a fun fact about Eric and Emily: they share birthdays that are one day apart from each other! Eric's is on April 22nd and Emily's is on April 23rd! Conner's is also on April 17th, so April is a big birthday month for them! Eric wishes Emily's birthday was the day before instead but Emily just loves that they can celebrate their birthdays together! April 23, 2022 was another big day for Eric and Emily. They had just recently gotten back from Iceland and Emily had been planning a surprise 40th birthday party for Eric at one of his favorite breweries, Guinness Open Gate Brewery. Before the surprise birthday party, Eric surprised Emily that morning with a trip to her family's favorite local jewelry store, Smyth Jewelers, to go engagement ring shopping!!! She was SO excited even though they were fashionably late (as always) to the surprise party. It was a really amazing day! Emily knew something special was just around the corner but she didn't know all that was in store...

Now to the grand finale...Emily and Eric's engagement! Eric had been secretly planning for a while and although Emily knew something might be around the corner, she had no idea what was planned! Emily and Eric had been planning fun monthly meet-ups with Diana and Tyler. They had already (strategically) planned to meet at Emily and Eric's favorite vineyard, Black Ankle Vineyard, in Mount Airy on Saturday, July 23rd. The night before, Eric said that Conner wanted to do a hike at Cunningham Falls in the morning before going to the vineyard. Emily thought this was a great idea since they hadn't been back since they had gone on their first hike there together over 3 years ago. She said "of course" and made sure to pack a dress to change into for the vineyard! July 23, 2022 just so happened to be the hottest day of summer and it felt like 100 degrees but they were ready for a hike and at least it wasn't raining! Eric, Emily, and Conner did the same exact hike as they did 3 years ago. This time they knew each other a lot more and Conner was a LOT taller. They climbed up the waterfall and walked back in the woods until they found the spot where Eric reminisced about Conner daring Emily, 3 years ago, to touch the soft moss in the cold water, and when she did, she screamed very loudly!! Conner liked that very much! Eric even brought up a video of Emily doing that very thing 3 years prior. When they were up there, Conner told Emily to look ahead towards a tree that had fallen down in the river. Emily had no idea what he was talking about but kept looking around. Finally, he said, "Em what does that say?" and Emily walked closer to the fallen down tree and saw that carved in tree was a heart and "MARRY ME." Emily said, "oh wow, that's so cute, someone proposed here," and then she turned around and realized, "what a minute, is this for me?"...and then Eric said Emily was the "love his life" and there was no other special place he'd rather propose and he got down on one knee! It was absolutely perfect! Emily was ecstatic and immediately said "YES"! The 2 hours of carving that Eric had done 2 days before was totally worth it! Conner was wearing a GoPro that Eric had bought from Iceland that he wanted to "try out!" Although they got some footage, they were so excited that it was such a special, private moment that just the three of them could share at the top of this very memorable waterfall. They will cherish this moment forever! Now Emily knew that they had planned the trip to Black Ankle Vineyard afterwards and Eric told her that they were still meeting up with Diana and Tyler there and her parents and his parents would be there to celebrate as well. She was so excited to share the news! Little did she know that Eric had planned a surprise engagement party there with all of their closest family and friends!!! Emily was SO surprised and happy about this! Despite the heat, they all had such a lovely time celebrating and are so glad they had all of their loved ones there to share in such a special day! And this is just the beginning of their love story....

Eric and Emily are so excited to continue to celebrate their love story on September 30th with all of you! Emily grew up going to St. James Episcopal Church in Monkton and Emily's parent's are still active parishioners there. Emily has dreamed about walking down the aisle of the church as a bride one day ever since she served as a acolyte. She is excited to have her dream come true! Another thing that Emily and Eric have in common is that they both grew up as Episcopalians so it's a very fitting location for their wedding ceremony. The Manor Tavern, is a wonderful restaurant and wedding venue next door which is a perfect place to continue the celebrations after the ceremony! Emily and Eric can't wait! Be sure to check out the Gallery on this website for photos that illustrate Emily and Eric's love story and their many adventures along the way!