New York City, Summer of 2011

It was a meet-cute, group-hang in the West Village.

At the time, Christine was based in San Francisco, but was in New York frequently for business. On one of these routine trips, she extended her stay for a few days to spend time with friends, and had no intentions to deviate from her plans.

But that's the thing. You just can't plan beshert (destiny, to you non-Yiddish speakers).

When Ben walked in the room, Christine felt herself trying to avoid his gaze. She was recovering from a jovial night at a karaoke bar and disappointed that she wasn't given advance notice that Ben, who she had heard about in passing from a friend, would be so handsome.

Ben, on the other hand, was given advance notice that he would be meeting Christine. So he came prepared: charming; ready to woo her. On that first day, they bonded over food (and had to overcome the fact that Ben does not eat pork), and felt themselves wanting to sit next to one another; wanting to make one another laugh. Eventually, they separated from their group of mutual friends, wandered off in search of burgers and went karaokeing, just the two of them.

The next day, Christine told her girlfriends about the connection she felt with this tall boy from New York and sadly prepared for her flight back to San Francisco. Ben wasted no time in texting her and asking to stay in touch. From that day on, they never went a few hours without emailing, calling, texting or Skyping. After 3 months of constant communication and transcontinental flights, work brought Christine to New York full time.

And for the next three and a half years, they began building their lives around each other.

Christine's a smart cookie, but Ben had her stumped.

He graduated from business school at Columbia in May 2014, and from the way he was talking about their future, she believed that a proposal was on the horizon. But because Ben knew that Christine was snooping around, he threw 50 things on her calendar that looked like a proposal. Consequently, the false alarms began to drive her a bit crazy.

After telling her friends that she was "over it!", "going to move back to San Francisco!", and everyone's favorite, "never even wanted to marry him in the first place!", Ben took Christine to Beacon, a quiet town in upstate New York that he loved (and knew she would love too). She rolled her eyes all morning long on the drive up to Beacon.

When they arrived at their bed & breakfast, Ben asked Christine what she thought. She said she loved it. He asked her if they could travel together for the rest of their lives. She said yes, while gazing outside. She then heard him ruffling through his pockets, and saw him get on one knee. She was so shocked that she hugged him for 10 minutes before she could say yes.

They knew immediately that there was no place they would rather hold their wedding at than in New Orleans, their favorite city in the US - a place where they've spent many birthdays and anniversaries.