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How did you meet?

We  originally thought we met sometime in second grade when everyone but Kristin (or so it felt like) had Mrs. Petrick (Ryan’s mom, and a favorite teacher at Washington Street Elementary School) for their teacher, but we recently discovered a picture of us in the same preschool classroom!

Later, we both attended Intermediate East, and then The Universe led us on different paths in life for a while but eventually brought both of us to Florida (Kristin to Orlando, and Ryan to Tallahassee and then Jacksonville).

The power of social media and Facebook eventually reunited us as “friends.” Thanks to both of us still having family in our hometown of Toms River that we visited during the holidays, there was a sighting at a Toms River bakery that led to Ryan messaging Kristin on Facebook, which then led to our first date at Prato in Winter Park. We were quickly wanting to see each other as much as possible.

When did you get engaged?

09/01/2017

Where did you get engaged?

Rosemary Beach, FL

How did he ask?

In March of 2017, we decided to place a friendly bet against each other on the NCAA Sweet Sixteen Championship. Loser had to take the winner on a weekend vacation to winner’s choice of destination. It was an intense couple of weeks and actually came down to the final game, and Ryan took the Win. Due to our crazy schedules, we had to put off the weekend vacation for a while though.

Then, in July 2017, we lost my dad to complications stemming from his Alpha-1 Antitrypsin deficiency, and Ryan’s mom to Alzheimer’s….3 days apart. Suffering the loss of our parents together brought us even closer, and we decided a weekend away alone together as soon as possible would be good for us.

We took the opportunity to settle the bet placed back in March. Ryan decided he wanted to to go to Rosemary Beach, an absolutely amazing little beach town in the panhandle of Florida. On our first night there, to my absolute surprise, he proposed in a restaurant quite appropriately called Paradis.