HOW WE MET
In the summer of 2020, Colin’s name came up during a conversation with a few friends. I knew who Colin was from some activities we were both involved in, but we didn’t really run in the same circles. Mostly, I just knew him as my friend Lilly’s older brother.
When we got back to school that fall, I approached Lilly and jokingly said, “Lilly, we could be sisters if you ever wanted to do anything about this.” It completely went over her head, and she shut it down right away. For months, I would casually bring up Colin in conversations with her, and she would talk about what a great brother he was and what a good guy he was. I tried to steer the conversation to hint that I was interested, but she kept missing it.
A few months later, Lilly and I were hanging out, and Colin’s name came up again. This time, she finally realized what I had been hinting at and asked, “Oh wait, are you interested?” Completely oblivious to all my previous attempts! She then texted Colin to see if he might be interested too.
The next day, I received a text from Colin asking if I’d like to grab coffee at Smokey Row. We met up the following day and ended up talking about everything under the sun, losing track of time (although I spent a lot of time pointing at random objects and making him tell me what color he saw them as). When we checked the time, it had been almost five hours! At the end of our coffee date, he walked me to my car and asked me out on another date, to which I happily said yes!
For the rest of the month, we went on several dates, making the most of our time together before Colin left for Navy boot camp. From January to October, we didn’t see each other at all. Our only communication for the first few months was handwritten letters while he was in boot camp, but after he finished, we had many phone calls and FaceTime dates. In October, Colin visited me in New York for the first time.
Over the past 3.5 years, we have been long distance—across different states and countries—visiting each other whenever we could. We love going to new restaurants and playing Connect Four at cute coffee shops. We also love hanging out with each other's friends and families. While long distance isn’t ideal, Colin has always made it feel easy with his love and intentionality. I knew very early on that I wanted to marry Colin, so I can’t wait to finally live in the same place and start the rest of our lives together!
THE PROPOSAL
I had known that I wanted to marry Cristina for some time. In late 2023, I was able to come home for Christmas. I was home for around a month, where I was able to talk to Cristina’s father to receive his blessing.
That following May, I scheduled another trip to New York. This time was different from all of the previous visits, as I had a ring in my pocket. I had a plan for how I was going to propose. I scheduled a reservation at a nice Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side. The plan according to Cristina was that we were going to dinner and then visiting my aunt and uncle who also live in New York. After dinner, I had my aunt and uncle pretend that they were busy, so I asked if she wanted to go on a walk in Central Park. We walked from the restaurant to Central park, where I already had a place in mind to propose. My only issue now was getting Cristina to the location without seeming suspicious. Luckily for me, she walked us straight there! It was a small gazebo that overlooks the lake called “Ladies’ Pavilion.” We sat down and talked for a little bit. As we got up to leave, I took the moment I’d been waiting for—I got down on one knee and proposed (en Español). Cristina was taken aback for a moment, needing a good 20 seconds to realize what was happening, but once she came back to reality, she gave me a big grin and said yes.
Getting to grow in faith and in love with Cristina has been a joyous experience, one that I would not trade for anything!
