Ilona, a freshman, and Jonah, a junior, both attended the University of Pennsylvania and hung out in similar circles. We finally crossed paths one cold night in 2015 at a party (we know, romantic!), and the rest was history!

After both graduating college, we ended up in the same city for two years! Here, we got our dog, Wally, got our first place together, celebrated holidays with family, and enjoyed life in the city.

2020: The year that Ilona started medical school and the year the pandemic started. We realized we had something pretty special when we actually liked quarantining together, but that also made it so much harder for us to become long distance again. We made it work with lots of phone calls, visits and trips together!

After 7 amazing years together, Jonah decided to make it official and proposed on our vacation to Croatia. We went for pre-dinner drinks, where unbeknownst to Ilona, a photographer was hiding in plain sight. Jonah took Ilona out to the water to check out the view, got down on one knee, and then said something really sweet that neither of us can remember because we both got so nervous. We got photos and then went to an amazing multi-course dinner where we had one of the best nights of our lives, as newly minted fiancés!