Sam's Version:

It was my 26th birthday in 2014 when I decided it was time to start dating again. I joined a dating website (which I always said I'd never do!) and Aric was one of the first profiles I saw. He drew me right in with his tagline which read: "Will you help me eat all these Oreos?" I sent him a message right away and we met 4 days later! On our first date, Aric mentioned he was from a town in Maine I'd probably never heard of. When he told me it was Fryeburg, with the town fair I'd grown up going to, 10 minutes from where my parents lived, it seemed like too crazy of a coincidence. I knew we had some potential when we were able to talk about the fair's pig scramble without things getting weird.

Over the first few years of our relationship, we bonded over a mutual love of travel, dogs, and Harry Potter. We traveled near and far, by planes, trains, cars, and ships. We pet a lot of dogs along the way, and watched all the Harry Potter movies. On October 14, 2017, Aric surprised me with a trip on the Cog Railway. I was a little suspicious that he brought a backpack with him for seemingly no reason. I was also suspicious when he insisted on setting up our camera on a tripod even though the top of Mount Washington was crazy misty and windy that day! It turns out, he had the most gorgeous ring inside his bag, and a sign that asked "Will you marry me?" Plus, he caught the whole proposal on camera (even though you can't hear anything over the sound of the wind!) He asked, and I said yes!


Aric's Version:

Sam reached out to me first. I want to make that clear because while she brings the looks, brains, and talent to our relationship; I bring a decent amount of luck. We met in the general Boston area and were pleasantly surprised that we both could pronounce things correctly and were later mutually impressed with each other’s ability to demolish pizza(s). On our 3rd date Sam brought her dog for massive bonus points (side note: Pooch is also a devout lover of pizza).

We’ve worked our way through our ever-expanding travel and Netflix bucket lists. Right now, our international travel plans are pretty much set until 2021 and our Netflix queue is significantly further. It's good to share future goals.

On October 14, 2017 I brought a backpack on a train up a mountain and gave Sam a ring on the top. The ring isn’t that big, but Sam sometimes borrows my pockets with other stuff and I didn’t want to accidentally propose with a chapstick - even if she might have still said yes.