Our story starts in February 2012, when, at the behest of a colleague, Marguerite signed up for okcupid.com. Almost immediately, she started chatting with a cute guy named Christopher. He was articulate, caring, played piano, and loved to travel. After writing back and forth for about a week, he proposed continuing their conversation in person at Blue Sage, a wonderful vegetarian restaurant. They quickly followed that with discussions of travel, swing dancing, more delicious meals, and slowly began to melt their lives together.

Several months into their relationship, Marguerite asked Chris to join her and a couple of close girlfriends on their trip to Puerto Rico. What happened next was an epic storybook of nonsense. As she watched Chris charm and joke with her friends, Marguerite knew she had found her penguin. He was silly, yet brilliant; hilarious, yet responsible; handsome, yet down-to-earth, and could keep up with her energy better than anyone she had ever met.

A couple months later, an ex-girlfirend of Chris's needed lodging for her feline. Chris tentatively asked Marguerite if she was okay with such an arrangement, a question to which Marguerite quickly answered YES! He thought she was a kind individual. In actuality, Marguerite was just a crazy cat lady. The second the sweet cat was taken away, Marguerite fell into a great depression. To remedy this, only two weeks later, they rescued two Siamese kittens from North Carolina: Bombalurina and Etcetera. Their little family had begun.

We know you didn't come here for a novel, so we'll fast-forward through the next two years: travel...gardening...cats...new jobs...Chris goes on the Appalachian Trail, Marguerite is sad but perseveres...roommate aka she who shall not be named...Chris comes home early from trail, Marguerite is happy...Marguerite breaks both elbows, Chris saves her...flooded apartment...more trips...fixed apartment...more cats (not actually true, but Marguerite did try)...wonderful experiences building a life together with friends and family from impromptu evening gatherings to weddings to babies.

Chris knew that Marguerite was good at discovering secrets, so he went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that she wouldn't find out! They were planning a vacation together, and the moment that Europe came up, Chris knew that's when he wanted to propose. As they started planning their European adventure, Chris made sure that every possible sign pointed to him not proposing.

He hinted that he wanted to propose at Christmas.

She even asked if he would propose during the trip, hinting (not subtly) how romantic it would be. He told her the idea was absolutly preposterous.

She had planned an extensive itinerary for every day of their trip.

They shared luggage.

She was the only one able to communicate with the wineries and airbnbs - French is hard!

The first few days abroad, Marguerite noticed that Chris seemed a bit stressed. As soon as they landed, he mentioned that they needed to find a sim card right away. At night, they would both collapse into bed. Marguerite would fall asleep quickly; however, Chris stayed up late into the morning on his phone. Chris had always been a bit of a workaholic, so Marguerite figured he might just be having a tough time letting go of life across the pond. Meanwhile, Chris had been secretly working on planning the proposal's timing and location. He had been messaging with a photographer from Paris, and they had planned in great detail how to surprise Marguerite.

However, with Marguerite, that wasn't enough. Photography is something that is important to both of them, and Chris wanted to properly document this momentous moment in their lives. Marguerite has a tendency to carry lots of bags when traveling, and he didn't want extraneous cargo in the pictures, so over the week, he whittled her down to just a camera. No bags, no purse!

On their first day in Burgundy, the plan was to head from Dijon to Beaune and spend the night. Knowing full well that the wineries close at 5pm, Chris mentioned that they hadn't given Dijon it's full due. He pretended to find a lovely gardens just outside of Dijon and brought it up casually as a great place to spend the afternoon. Side note: this would never have worked in the US, as the gardens on the outskirts of Dijon were actually an hour due west of Dijon, and at some point some smart phone or other would have alerted Marguerite to her kidnapping.

They arrived at the Jardins de Barbirey and were greeted by an overly excited young woman, who promptly handed Marguerite a map and reviewed five or six times the appropriate way to tour the gardens (she had been primed by the photographer and was quite excited to know what was coming). Marguerite was slightly confused but dutifully studied the proposed path for this self-guided tour, and they were off!

They began their carefully detailed tour, and eventually happened upon a pond with geese! Marguerite began taking pictures and interacting with the local fowl, unaware that one of the most exciting and romantic moments of her life was about to happen. It was at this point that Chris suggested sitting on a bench.

Now, there were two benches. One overlooked the pond with the geese (an obvious choice for Marguerite), and one was a blue bench set in the middle of a field. Marguerite headed over towards the pond bench, a choice that Chris immediately rejected, instead suggesting the blue bench. Marguerite tried again for the pond bench, a suggestion that was answered with a clear, "NO, this bench." Thinking that Chris had lost his mind, and that it might be in her best interest to not provoke crazy people, Marguerite agreed to sit on the blue bench. No sooner had they sat down did Chris have her back up again, holding her in his arms (now she knew he was crazy). He got down on one knee and said beautiful things (half of which Marguerite is still not sure of, as she was in shock and he refused to repeat them because he plans to use them again in his vows), one of which included, "Will you marry me?", to which she said yes!