How it all began
From Emily -
Our story is one of my proudest "everything happens for a reason" moments! I was still living in NYC when I decided to travel home for St. Patrick's Day to visit my friend and beloved bridesmaid, Chelsea. With a carry-on suitcase and only four outfits in hand, the pandemic hit, preventing me from flying back to Brooklyn. Who knew that’d be the strange start to my love story!
Chelsea lived in a four-story walk-up in Chicago, where we hiked all four flights of stairs to get to her apartment. It just so happened that a radiant, playful, intelligent, and selfless future husband was living in the apartment directly below hers. Lucky for him, he only had three flights of stairs. For months, he was hearing his future wife’s stomping feet, dancing, and slightly off-key singing, and had no idea.
Towards the beginning of fall, Chelsea met the boys downstairs and told me I should meet one of them because we’d hit it off. We met in his kitchen and bonded immediately.
Cut to: we talked every day, all day, before he traveled to Florida to look for a condo. After a four-hour FaceTime call and a few glasses of wine, he asked if I’d like to come with him and his family. We took big strides. In Florida, after a bonfire on the beach, we went for a moonlit walk. While we were walking, he popped the first of two monumental questions, and we officially started dating on September 25, 2020.
I won’t bore you with too much of a sappy love story, but our relationship felt like one of those silly rom-com movie relationships that seem almost unattainable. We’ve spent the last four years decorating a home, traveling, adopting two cats (that we’re far too obsessed with), and enjoying all that Chicago has to offer.
Our favorite place in the world is Italy—shocker, I know. But it was more than I ever dreamed it would be and gave us the same enchantment that our relationship has. There are a thousand reasons why I love Italy, and thousands more why I love Cam. Now that I get to share that with our closest family and friends, I couldn’t be more grateful for a life I didn’t think could happen for me. Little Emily would be beaming.
From Cameron -
When I was young, I'd hoped for a serendipitous encounter like you see in the movies. I'm lucky enough to say that I met her, in the strangest of ways, and the rest was history.
We met by chance through a mutual friend that introduced us in my own kitchen. Admittedly she manufactured the introduction, as she thought we would be a great match, but I never would have known Emily’s friend (Chelsea) if I didn’t move into that small Lakeview apartment in 2020 and brought our new neighbors a bottle of wine. Funny enough, when I first met Emily, later that evening I was so nervous that my heart was fluttering out of my chest and I thought I was having a heart attack and wound up in the hospital - which is where I asked Emily on our first date.
On our first date we found ourselves deep in conversation for hours, exploring the wonders of the universe, the mysteries of religion and quantum mechanics, the possibility of conscious robots, and the hopes, dreams, and fears that shaped who we were. I think we both realized that we had found something rare. We found our forever person. I haven’t looked back since.
It has since been an incredible 4 years together of building a home, small family (fur babies), and a relationship that I’m proud of. Through good times, slow times, bad times, and everything in-between, we’ve been there for each other and always will be - which is all I could’ve ever asked for. I feel very blessed to have a life partner that I can laugh with, cry with, dance with, smile with, and watch all kinds of stupid movies with. Even the boring, 3 hour long movies that I make her see twice in theaters - like Oppenheimer. Every day with Emily is better than the last and I love her to bits.
And the rest is history
