As told by Danielle: Our mutual friend Fitzy brought Danielle to a party at Sean's house in college. After a few drinks, Danielle found herself on the floor in the hallway chatting with Fitzy staring at a wall kicked in the wall. With some liquor courage, Danielle admitted to Fitzy that she had never kicked a hole in a wall to which he responded "go for it" So she kicked the wall making the original hole larger. At that moment Sean walked over to them saying "Hey what are you doing?! don't make it worse" bashful and embarrassed Danielle blamed Fitzy for saying it was ok. Fast forward through a few more Parties Danielle attempted beer pong with Sean every chance she could. and eventually got him to show her how to get on the roof where everyone partied. They sat up there chatting for a bit before getting distracted by other partygoers. Danielle occasionally asked Fitzy about Sean, but the timing was never right. A few years...after college Danielle moved around the country finally back to Maine and Sean traveled to Standing Rock which brought him to Seattle. During these years they followed one another on Social media until their paths crossed again. In the Spring of 2017, Danielle had a booth at a farmers market in Massachusetts. Sean's Mother Diana came to receive a Reiki session from her. During the session, they chatted discovering that Diana was Sean's mom! Danielle reached out to Sean letting him know they had met. Danielle invited Sean up to the school she was working at next time he should pass through town. It was not until Danielle's 32 birthday that they would meet again. Sean had come back to the East Coast from Seattle to spend the holidays with his family. They matched on Bumble (a dating app). Sean then facebook messaged Danielle to let her know that she should reply. After some messages, Sean asked Danielle to join him at a concert at the Word Barn to see Haley Hendrix, a musician from Portland Oregon. Danielle agreed. That Saturday night they met up in Dover for their first date! The Date started at the Brick House in Dover where they chatted and caught up. Halfway through dinner, Sean's Brother Dylan joined. (leaving danielle to think that maybe this was not a date). After dinner, they met up with Sean and Dylan's Freinds and piled into 3 packed cars to head down to the Word Barn for the show. Danielle expected some music to dance to but instead they listened to sad lullaby music. Danielle and Sean sat upstairs in the back quietly chatting. After being shooshed by everyone for interrupting the lullabies they decided to leave. On the way out Haley Hendrix offered a final blow to Sean by telling him she was sorry he lived in Seattle. He would not listen to her for an entire year. Sean and Danielle have been inseparable since that night.

It was late July, and I was to meet up with Danielle at around 10am to head to the family cottage on the beach in Wells, Maine. Danielle was looking forward to a casual beach day, But that day was not going to be just a casual beach day, and everyone knew that except for Danielle. “Everyone” basically included my entire family, whom I had discussed the proposal with the night before. They were all eagerly awaiting an update from me. It also included Danielle’s father, Andy, her mother, Andrea as well as her aunt Donna and uncle Pete. The usual suspects of the cottage in Wells. Earlier that morning I had called Andy to discuss my intentions with the day. After the phone call I was feeling pretty good and on my way to purchase an engagement ring. Andy shared the news at the cottage. That is how everyone knew the plan… that “Sean was going to propose to Danielle sometime before dinner”. I’d like to think I had planned more than that but perhaps not. To get the ring I had to meet up with Danielle Lareau, long time friend and roommate of our Danielle. We converged on the downtown Dover jewelry shop at which she worked early that Sunday morning. Danielle Lareau had gathered close to three dozen engagement rings and had them displayed on the counter. “Any of these would be a good choice” she said to me. I picked up the first one that drew my eye, studied it for a bit. I then picked up two more, quickly set them back down and went back to the first one. “This one” I said. Danielle agreed. She began to describe to me how the stone and the ring are original to each other, “probably close to 100 years old” she stated as she packaged the ring. Anyhow, to keep it short, she shed some tears, I shed some cash, and we were both on our way in just about 15 or so minutes. For most of the day, it was just a casual day at the beach. Watching the waves, a few games of cornhole and a rather long game of bocce, but nothing out of the ordinary. Lot’s of eye contact between the co-conspirators though… that's for sure. Around 4pm or so, after many trips to my backpack to confirm that the ring was in fact there, I moved it to my pocket and decided it was time to go. I suggested to Dani that she and I walk out to the jetty with our fishing rods and make some cast. Most of the family agreed it was a good idea, but Dani was reserved. “You know, being high tide. and all…” I digressed. However, Dani pointed out that it was actually low tide, and there would be too many rocks, probably few, if any fish. After some conversation, I declared “be it low tide or high, I think we should try!”. Dani reluctantly agreed to entertain my unrealistic fishing agenda. So we marched out to the jetty. All the way to the end. “Definitely not here” I began to think to myself as we jumped over the crevasses from large rock to large rock. We fished for ten or so minutes. It was just as Danielle had predicted, so we scaled our way back to the beach. It was just as we jumped off the final rock and onto the sand where I decided to do the thing. We were discussing the lackluster conditions of the surf when i told her “well it wasn't even really about fishing”, “What?” she said as she turned to me. I was dropping to one knee in the sand, and holding out an engagement ring in an opened box. Very iconic. For a moment it was just the two of us, she was agape, hands up to her mouth, I was saying some very nice things that she doesn’t remember, then about 20 strangers from all directions on the beach stage rushed us with claps and cheers. Including one local beach going mom who caught our engagement in the middle of a snap chat recording of her kids playing in the sand. The only photo of that moment in time is a screenshot of that snapchat video. After celebrating with our new friends for a few minutes, we arrived back at the cottage, hand in hand as fiances. Danielle's family was waiting with champagne and we had a wonderful lobster dinner on the beach. Best Day Ever.