OK, fine. We admit it. We met on a dating app. :) What a world we live in! We initially hit it off by talking music and geeky-ness. He talked music; I talked geek. We chatted for a while and decided that meeting in person the VERY NEXT DAY was the very best plan. We had a blast and saw each other several more days that first week. The rest, as the cliché says, is truly history. We spent tons of time together throughout the spring and summer, and we quickly knew we'd each found our person.

We woke up one chilly Saturday morning last December and decided it was time to start LOOKING at rings. Michelle had some ideas, but we both wanted to see how different styles might look on her tiny fingers. We were just LOOKING. We went to one store and shared Michelle's Pinterest board full of dainty, flowery, elfish, Tolkien-inspired engagement rings, and while the woman helping us loved the ideas, she didn't really have anything in the store that came anywhere close to what we had in mind. So the adventure continued! At the next store, we looked at another dozen or so designs and were having a similar experience. There were lots of beautiful options, but nothing was quite right. All of a sudden, though, our helper was struck with inspiration. She asked us to wait for a moment and disappeared through a door into the back rooms. She was gone for at LEAST 20 minutes. We began to wonder if she wasn't forging something new and wonderful of her own creation back there. When she returned, she held out a small black box and asked, "Is this closer to what you're looking for?" Michelle opened the box, took one look at the delicate matching set of rings and burst into tears. You might think the day's adventures ended there, but they didn't. LOOKING immediately turned into DOING. Ben purchased those perfect rings, took Michelle home, and told her to get ready. Michelle immediately left to get her nails done because engagement pictures necessitate perfect nails! And OH the romance! Ben drove us back to the place where we first met on a busy sidewalk in Downtown Woodstock and proposed on the exact same spot. People stopped and wished us congratulations, cheered, clapped, and woohooed. We had some drinks at the same little place we had our first date to celebrate, and it was the sweetest little moment you ever did see.