Our love story began the same way all great love stories do - - on the internet. We met on the dating app Hinge. Josh asked about Beth's dog Winnie to kick things off - which was a clutch move as that's her favorite topic - and after chatting a bit, we set up a date on June 30, 2022, at Upland Brewing in Broad Ripple. Josh let Beth know he would be wearing a blue shirt so she would spot him. This almost turned to disaster.

Upon arrival, Beth was walking up to the brewery and saw a man who was clearly in his 60's riding up on a dilapidated bicycle. To her dismay, he was wearing a blue shirt. She thought this would be another one of those hilarious but disappointing first date stories. Fortunately, however, Beth turned slightly and spotted Josh sitting at a picnic table looking even better than his profile pictures. So, Beth scurried over and uttered her very romantic first words to Josh: "Hi! I thought I was being catfished."

We had a great time. We were supposed to just do drinks, but we stuck around for dinner. Beth loved hearing Josh's stories about his family and fun times on the lake. Beth decided at one point in the date to break out her impression of a Rhode Island accent (I'm still mortified I did this), and somehow that was the moment that Josh found her to be charming and funny.

After our first date, things just kept getting better. Josh knew there was something special about Beth when he took her to the Jim Irsay kickoff concert for the Colts season. Josh knew that football wasn't really her thing and had no idea what she'd think of the music, but we had an absolute blast.

After the concert, we hadn't eaten and it was late in Indianapolis. We were wandering trying to find anything open, but had limited options. Finally, Josh joked: "Hey, Hooters is open!" And Beth responded, to Josh's surprise: "Honestly, I could go for some wings." That's when Josh knew we could have fun going anywhere, doing anything together. And so, we fell in love at Hooters in downtown Indy.

We knew that we were a forever thing, so Beth told Josh that whenever he was ready he should talk to the world's best sister and most impressive secret keeper - HRH Elaine C. Wiley. Josh reached out to her and Elaine, true to form, took up the call with confidence.

Elaine casually threw out the idea to go diamond ring shopping with Beth "just to see what you might like", colluded with the jeweler to set aside the perfect diamond, arranged the secret shopping trip with Josh, threw Beth off the scent of the engagement plan, and kept her lips zipped when Beth texted her the night before leaving for Aruba ("I'm not going to bother painting my nails because I'm pretty sure he's not going to propose.")

Although Josh had a scare upon arrival when a customs agent almost pulled out the ring box in the airport, the setup to the engagement unfolded perfectly. On our first night in Aruba, we enjoyed some cocktails and strolled the beach at sunset. Just after the sun dipped below the horizon, Josh got down on one knee and asked Beth to marry him. Technically, Beth never said yes because she was crying too hard. At a certain point, though, Josh's knee began to ache from kneeling so long so he figured that probably meant she would accept.

Hopefully, we both keep it together at the wedding for our "I do's".