Eric moved to New York City on October 4th, 2016, on a mission to expand his Dutch creative agency to the US. He had two main objectives: establishing the company and finding a place to live, considering he had arrived with just two suitcases and an AirBnB reservation. Meanwhile, Jill had been living in the city since 2012, pursuing stage acting from her apartment in Woodside with her little pup, Tweak, by her side.

Needless to say, with both of them chasing their Big Apple dreams, neither of them was seriously looking for a relationship. Fortunately, they were both on OKCupid (the big dating app at the time), and still spent some time "swiping".

Eric swiped right and *Ding!* Jill got a notification. Then the emails started coming in. *Ding!* "A great match just visited your profile!" *Ding!* "You both like each other!" *Ding!* "She sent you a message!"

Things didn't slow down there. Nine days after Eric landed in NY, on October 13th, 2016, the first date was planned. Eric suggested going for coffee and was hell-bent on finding the best coffee place in town, despite barely knowing where anything was yet. Some Google sleuthing yielded a place on West 4th as the place to be for unbeatable coffee.

Knowing he was a NYC newbie and not wanting to get lost or be late, he headed over there early and, naturally, he couldn't find it. After 15 minutes of searching he tried the crumbling door on a dilapidated old building where the neighboring house numbers indicated it had to be and found the dingiest coffee shop he had ever seen. Glancing over the plastic folding tables and chairs, and noticing the only shiny thing in the dump was a large espresso machine in the back, he knew this was no place for a first date.

With two minutes to go, he ran next door to the only other option in sight: a bar named the Slaughtered Lamb. Seemingly permanently in a Halloween horror theme - it was covered in pumpkins, skeletons and murder movie posters - it hardly seemed like the right place for a first date, but he gambled, not knowing where else to go. He quickly texted Jill about the change of plans and her reply was "now that sounds perfect!"

That first date started at 4pm. Eric figured this was the best time for a date because either of them could always skip out with "dinner plans" or extend it to dinner if it was going well. Dinner never happened because they simply couldn't stop talking and learning about each other. Jill grabbed his hand and was seemingly hell-bent on showing Eric all her favorite places in one night, winding up deep in Queens 12 hours later at 4am as she stunned him with her voice during karaoke.

After that night, they met every day after work to adventure through the city. Moving way too fast by any normal standards, they moved in together within days, leaving that AirBnB in the dust and hunting for a bigger apartment.

Over the next 5 years, the adventuring never stopped and they fell more and more in love. A wonderful, new remote job landed them the opportunity to move anywhere in the country and they decided to settle in North Carolina, away from the long winters and into the aromas fresh green trees with skies where you can see the stars.

This is where they're getting hitched, exactly 7 years after the first date that never ended, on October 13th, 2023, and just as on that day, there will be plenty of pumpkins.