Although Brendan and I both went to St. John's University we didn't really meet until 2014 after we had both graduated. After a Johnnies basketball game at Madison Square Garden several alumni went to a popular bar across the street, and that's where we first ran into each other. In college I knew of Brendan because he was a starting pitcher on the baseball team. I had friends in college that were athletes, but for some reason our paths never really crossed. Fast forward to the night we met and we had a brief conversation about college and our current lives. Not long after that night he reached out to one of my best friends asking about me. I brushed it off as nothing serious and told her to do the same, but little did I know how persistent he would be. Over the next several months he didn't give up, but neither did I. He reached out to my friend again and again, but I still held my ground based on my college preconceptions about athletes (and lots of '90s and early 2000s movies). Brendan resorted to having his best friend - a mutual friend of ours - ask me out for him...via text. I finally caved! We met up for drinks on a Wednesday night almost a year after that basketball game. I knew almost immediately that my stubbornness could have cost me what was about to be the best thing to ever happen to me.

My family has a lake house with great sentimental value since we have owned it for over 50 years. Brendan and I decided to spend a weekend there celebrating our anniversary. That night we had a perfectly wonderful and non-suspicious night of wine, dinner, and movies. We slept in pretty late but Brendan got up, showered, and was dressed before I was even out of bed. It made me a little suspicious and my mind started thinking...but when I saw him wearing a Seinfeld shirt I laughed to myself and knew a proposal wasn't happening today (spoiler...it did!). It was a cold but beautiful sunny day and he suggested we go down to the lake. I'm not a morning person, so I spent the next hour slowly getting ready while he sat with his jacket on ready to go. I put bare minimum effort into this: dry shampoo in my hair, jeans that were too big, and winter boots. Not like there was any need to look good in the woods (spoiler...there was!). We walked to the lake and down to the edge of our dock. We looked around at the amazing fall colors and how the sunlight reflected off the water. I was teasing him about something, I can't even remember what it was, but he asked me, "Do you still love me?" "Obviously!" I said it teasingly and threw in an eye roll for good measure. He asked me, "How much do you love me?" It's a question we jokingly ask every once in a while so that the other can come up with a unique response. I quickly looked around the lake for inspiration to come up with something clever but before I could answer I heard him ask, "Enough to marry me?" as he got down on one knee. I basically blacked out so my response is a bit fuzzy. Brendan says it took me awhile to actually say "Yes!" In fact I'm pretty sure I said, "No, no, no" (in that OH MY GOD NO WAY kind of way). In my defense I had just been asked the most important question in one of my favorite places by the love of my life.