His Side of the Story
We met in the way of most modern-day love stories these days - on an app! We still wonder to this day how a resident in Brooklyn, NY matched with a medical student in Fort Lauderdale, FL, but God really knew what he was doing. From the first day that we met, we spent hours texting back and forth on the app. But I must say, what really won me over was when she asked for my number before I got a chance to ask her. After 3 months of countless texts, phone calls and facetimes, I finally came to visit her in Florida. I was a little nervous because at the end of the day she was still some stranger that I met on the internet, but our first date was definitely one for the books! It felt like we had known each other forever. That day I realized that I had met my best friend and life partner. Fast forward 4 years, I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with this girl!
Her Side of the Story
It all started (or so I thought) about a month ago when we realized that Roby was going out of town for a work course during his birthday weekend. Next year, Roby’s headed to Florida for fellowship so we wanted try and make his last birthday in New York as special as possible! We decided that we would celebrate the following weekend, but little did I know that Roby and a whole army of our closest friends and family were planning the biggest surprise of my life instead!
So what did we come up with for Roby’s big birthday bash? Dinner and drinks - original, I know lol. About a week leading up to the big day, Roby started telling me that he wanted to try doing something different before we went to dinner, an “activity.” That’s where Nadia came in! Qais and Nadia have been my New York family since the first day I met them. Roby and I are the worst at planning so about two days before we were supposed to figure out a fun activity, we facetimed Nadia to brainstorm ideas. Roby listed a few ideas like escape rooms, paint and sip classes, tango classes. That’s when Nadia mentioned that one of her friends had gone to a cool art class in the city at this place called Unarthodox. The art class was a blind folded sculpting class. Now anything arts and crafts are totally my thing so I asked Roby if he wanted to save this for my birthday and figure out an activity that was more ‘him’ to do for his birthday. But Nadia did such an awesome job at selling us on this class that we both agreed to go. Luckily this place still had an opening for us for that Saturday!
Fast forward two more days and we’re on our way to the art class with Nadia, Umer, Manider. We enter the studio and a table is set with 5 clay heads… a little weird, but we all went with it lol. As the class began, the one thing that they emphasized was that we were NOT ALLOWED to take off our blindfolds and, man, was I ready to follow the rules. They gave us an intro, poured out some glasses of wine and pretty soon it was time to put on our blindfolds and start sculpting. As the music got louder (and two glasses of wine later), I really started getting into the sculpting. So much so that I knocked over a full glass of wine all over myself. Within seconds, the instructor runs over to me and tells me not to take off my blindfold. Ever the rule follower, I did not want to risk ruining the experience for everyone else so I kept my blindfold on while strangers cleaned wine off of me - luckily my dress was the same color as the wine.
Little did I know that I was the only one still working on this clay head. Roby and our friends and family were quietly transforming the room into the most beautiful proposal setting that I had ever seen. About 15 minutes into blindfolded sculpting I hear “Perfect” by Ed Sheran come over the speakers, mine and Roby’s song. That’s when it hit me! But like I said, I’m a rule follower. A video that Roby had traveled all the way to Philly to make had started playing, but I still wasn’t taking off my blindfold. The instructor ran over to me and told me that it was okay to look now and as soon as I opened my eyes I instantly burst into tears - hardcore ugly crying. I was watching Roby tell our love story in the video while our loved ones from near and far walked into the room one by one. Each of them were carrying paintings made of the different milestones in our relationship.
Roby was the last person to enter. In a room surrounded by all of our friends and family, our eyes filled with tears, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.Roby Abraham, you have made the happiest and luckiest girl in the world! You challenge me and you help me grow. You comfort me when I am at my lowest points. You made me laugh louder than I ever have before. You have embraced my family as your own! You push me to grow in my faith. I thank God everyday that He allowed our paths to cross. You are the love of my life and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.