Our Story
January 2023
The Beginning
After meeting on a dating app and talking for two weeks from several states apart, Jack and Emma finally had their first date in Washington, D.C. on January 14, 2023. Bundled up for the cold winter day, they set out from their respective flats to finally meet one another at a street corner equidistant from their homes. Jack presented Emma with a brown butter brownie that he made the night before and wrapped in tinfoil. As a lover of brownies, Emma was delighted by this offering and immediately sensed that Jack was a keeper.
The first date did not go according to plan. It was supposed to last about three hours (if all went well) and be at the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space. However, the Space museum was closed, so they went to the nearby Smithsonian Museum of Art where they spent several hours talking and exploring until it closed.
That evening, Emma had plans to meet her friend Sarah Karam (bridesmaid) to eventually rendezvous with friends Jon and Luke. However, Sarah was very jet lagged and needed to take a nap, so Emma asked Jack if he’d like to continue their date by getting a drink together at Red Light (a Detroit-style pizza place with good cocktails).
One drink became two, then appetizers turned into sharing dinner. The more time Emma and Jack spent together, the more fun they had. Jack quickly realized that he could listen to Emma forever, although he did need her to draw a map of Canada to explain where she was from.
The next day, Emma ate that brownie and knew she had to see Jack again and she wasn’t going to play it cool by waiting for him to text her first. Taking matters into her own hands, she asked Jack out immediately, and he agreed! The second date was a night walk around the National Mall to see the monuments lit up and then dessert and nightcap at the Hamilton.
Walking together has been an essential part of their lives ever since.
Figure 1 — The seductive brownie
Figure 2 — The First Date
Figure 3 — Emma’s Map
Figure 4 — The Second Date
Spring 2023
The Early Months
In April 2023, Jack thought Emma was having some sort of episode because her heart rate was so high, but it turned out to be the best sort of episode: love. Emma told Jack she loved him. Thank God he said it back.
During these months, both of them thought that this relationship was practically too good to be true. Jack assumed that Emma (with her many languages, her international education, and her experience in hand-to-hand combat) was a spy using him as cover, while Emma assumed that Jack’s uncanny ability to produce sweet treats and surprises was a recruiting tactic borrowed from Scientology. Thus far, neither have confessed these theories to be true.
In 2023, Jack had just begun his Master’s program and Emma was taking the prerequisite exams to eventually write the New York Bar Exam, so weekend study sessions became part of the routine. Sundays were often spent at a coffee shop or museum cafe, studying separately but enjoying the time together.
After their first date, Emma and Jack saw each other at least four times a week. Often, Jack would surprise Emma on her morning commutes with a mint mocha or a pastry from Dua in hand. With just a mile between their homes, Jack and Emma always found time to see one another, no matter how busy their week or how brief their free time.
Around March 18, 2025, Jack asked Emma, “Are you my girlfriend?” Emma was confused by this question and didn’t know how to respond. So after a moment of silence, Jack said, “Let me rephrase that. Will you be my girlfriend?”
Emma accepted this as suitable question formulation and agreed.
Figure 5 — The Frischs
Figure 6 — Meeting the Crawfords
Spring 2023
Meeting the Family
Jack and his brother Ben (best man) had been living together in D.C. for two years by the time Emma came into the picture. Emma and Ben quickly bonded over their shared international legal interests.
In June 2023, Emma thought it would be a fun idea to invite some D.C. friends to the west coast for the summer. One thing led to another, and it ended up being Jack and Alex (bridesman) who flew out to Seattle to spend time with Emma’s family in British Columbia and enjoy the lake house in Washington, celebrating Canada Day in one country and the Fourth of July in the other. Alex and Emma have been best friends since meeting in 2017 at the University of Edinburgh, so Alex already knew Emma’s family…but this was Jack’s first time meeting them.
Jack did his best to make a good impression on the Frischs, even helping with the preparations for Hayden (groomsman) and Georgia’s (matron of honour) wedding taking place just two weeks later on July 15, 2023 at the Frischs’ home. Despite his best efforts, Emma’s parents were so preoccupied with getting their property ready for their son’s wedding that they forgot that they even met Jack. Thankfully, Georgia interrogated Jack appropriately, Hayden gave Jack a Canada shirt, and the elder Frischs were lucky enough to enjoy two first impressions of Jack.
When Emma got to meet the Crawfords in October 2023, Tim and Chris came to DC for a weekend and all went swimmingly.
2024
Gettin’ Serious
Figure 7 — Moving into our first apartment
Figure 8 — The place where Jack proposed
When Christmas 2023 came around, Emma and Jack went their separate ways to spend the holiday with their own families, but ever the romantic, Jack told Emma that he never wanted to spend the holidays without her again. While making dinner together on Valentines Day in 2024, Jack once again left Emma speechless when he said “I’m going to marry you one day.”
In early 2024, they decided that they would move in together after Jack and Ben’s lease expired in the fall. With luck, they found a beautiful apartment that ticked all the boxes after just three tours and signed their first lease together in June, to start on September 6, 2024.
In July, Emma took the New York State Bar Exam. She passed with flying colors and became a licensed attorney.
In August, Jack bought the center diamond for Emma’s engagement ring.
True to his word, Emma and Jack spent the winter holidays together. They journeyed to Victoria, BC to spend American Thanksgiving with the Frisch family (PSA for the Americans: Canadian Thanksgiving is in October) and Jack asked Mr. and Mrs. Frisch for their blessing. They gave it with disconcertingly little hesitation.
In December of 2024, Jack had a very narrow window to propose: a single weekend between the ring being ready and their departure for the holidays, so he got creative. The week before, he wouldn’t stop talking about how romantic their evening out at the Nutcracker would be on Friday night. This, of course, made Emma think he was going to propose Saturday.
Instead, when they left the house Friday morning to go get breakfast, he pulled Emma into a waiting car and whisked her off to the National Arboretum, where the Asian Gardens are green year-round. In the pagoda there, surrounded by quiet, lush greenery, he popped the question and…
She said yes!
Now, the rest is yet to come…
