From the bride... "I like to believe Brian and I met by the way of fate. Brian thinks he just got really lucky. The reality is, we are two Midwesterners that should have met through our shared ties. Yet, we somehow found each other in a city of 10 million people. New York City is where we fell in love, the place we call home and the city that will forever have our hearts. We both are from two cities in the Midwest, Brian from St. Louis, MO and myself from Quincy, IL. Growing up I spent a lot of time in St. Louis visiting my cousin, who is also my best friend and bridesmaid. From hanging around her I grew to know all of her friends. Unbeknownst to me, one of her friends had an older brother that grew up and moved to New York City after college. My cousin and Brian’s sister would like to take credit for our meeting but that is just not how it worked out. The new age of dating apps is really what brought us together. We matched while both living in the city and saw we had a mutual friend in common. That friend, of course, was Brian’s sister. We made the Midwest connection, conversed a bit, exchanged numbers and that was it. A month later I realized he had never asked me out. How rude I thought! So I took the bull by the horns and called him out. When Brian received the message from his future wife, he was walking back from a midnight visit to the Eiffel tower while on a business trip. To my surprise, he responded immediately and explained he was abroad but would be back tomorrow. Did I want to meet for a drink? The very next night we met at a bar in the city. I never expected our date to turn into anything but a friendly drink with another Midwesterner. I knew just how wrong I was when I walked in the door and immediately saw the most adorable man staring at me with the biggest smile on his face. After that date, it was over for the both of us. Two years later he was down on one knee asking me to be his forever. Being the control freak that I have turned into since planning our wedding, I did my absolute best to basically plan the perfect engagement trip for Brian to propose. Bermuda is a short flight from New York City and quite possibly one of the most beautiful places to visit, which made it perfect for a romantic engagement. Unfortunately, one variable I could not control was the ring. Brian sat me down and had to explain we weren’t getting engaged on this trip. He saw through exactly what I was doing and didn’t want me to be disappointed. A few months later, Brian had asked if I wanted to try out this Resort and Spa in upstate New York for a quick visit. I was traveling back to St. Louis that weekend for my cousin’s Bachelorette party and wasn’t going to get back until Sunday afternoon. The plan was for Brian to pick me up at the airport and head straight up to Mohonk Mountain House for a couple of days. As we got closer, I could tell that something was up with him because he was a nervous wreck which is not like him at all. He had this plan to go on a hike to the top of this cliff where you can see multiple states at once. His plans were cut short when he learned that the hike alone would take close to two hours. We were running late and had barely an hour until our dinner reservations, so he suggested we go on a walk to check out the property instead. As we were leaving the hotel room, I lovingly gave Brian a little tap on his butt and felt something peculiar in his back pocket. As we began our walk, I tried to get a good look at his pants to see if there in fact was a small ring box hiding in there. Again, trying to not get my hopes up we continued on our walk along the cliff of where the hotel was set. We came to the end and all of a sudden there he was, down on one knee ring in hand. I was so flustered that I grabbed the ring way before I had time to say YES. It’s just that beautiful! Sure, we weren’t in Bermuda but this was way more special than I could have ever planned on my own. Later that week we were heading back to the Midwest for my family’s annual trip to the Lake of the Ozarks with my 94 family members. Needless to say, he planned it perfectly. We were engaged and were on our way to celebrate with all of our family back home. I am an absolute romantic and have been in love with love ever since I was a little girl. Like many women, I have been looking for the man of my dreams for what seems like forever. I hoped that one day I would find him and that he would be everything I had ever dreamt up in my perfect man. Yet, I never expected him to be better than my dream man. Brian and I fit together like two puzzle pieces. We are similar in so many ways, yet different in all the right ways. He loves me more than I ever knew another person could. We are so perfect for one another that at first, it seemed too good to be true. I quickly learned that sometimes when you least expect it, fate kicks in and reminds you how possible true love really is."