Adam & Rachel

Reader, we did not make each other wait. Playing it cool is for chumps. The second date was the following day.

Two weeks in, on a day that only comes around once every four years, Adam brought Rachel to Mystic for the first time. Neither of them knew yet that they were auditioning a town that would one day become the backdrop for all of this. Adam just hoped that she liked it there.

Their first big trip with friends was south to D.C. They remember less about the itinerary than about the ease of it, how quickly a few weeks of dating had turned into the kind of "we" that books a flight, splits a hotel, and shows up loudly for someone else's big day.

In May, Rachel met Katie and Jeff; in July, Adam met Nancy and Billy. Both went well, there was never any doubt. Another all-clear.

In December, Adam packed up his life in Greenpoint to move four stops down the G line to Bed-Stuy. And although they wouldn't notice until much later… that the day he moved in fell exactly two years before the date on the front of this website. By the end of February they'd moved once more, back to Greenpoint (where each of them first landed in New York City, although over a decade apart), into the first apartment that was wholly and only theirs.

Which brings us, improbably, and all at once, to you. Everything above happened in just under three years; this last chapter is the one we couldn't write by ourselves. Thank you for crossing whatever distance it takes to spend a winter weekend with us in Mystic, whether you can be there with us physically, or you'll be sending your love from afar. Our story gets better each day, and with each of you.