Our Story

Ada's in Old Town, where Lauren and Stephen had their first date — Ada's in Old Town: Where it all began

Somehow, despite both having deep ties to Old Town Alexandria, it took a dating app to finally get us in the same place at the same time. Our first date was at Ada’s in Old Town, where Lauren already lived, and where Stephen always seemed to end up thanks to years spent visiting family roots in the area. Stephen’s grandparents grew up in Old Town, his dad was born there, Lauren’s Oma lived there for a time, and Lauren’s parents also called Alexandria home for a few years. Apparently the city had been trying to introduce us for years.

Stephen and Yeti becoming best friends — Yeti eventually came around on Stephen - Now she thinks he's her emotional-support human.

It didn’t take long for us to realize we had a lot in common: a love of the NFL (made easier by the fact that the Steelers and Commanders only have to coexist every few years), skiing and snowboarding, cooking food that would never qualify as “light,” and spending time with the people we love most.

Lauren knew things were serious when Stephen met her dog, Yeti, and immediately adored her. Yeti, meanwhile, took a more cautious approach to the relationship, but these days she’s firmly on Team Stephen.

The mountain house in southwestern Pennsylvania — The Mountain House where we live out our HGTV renovation dreams

About a year into dating, Lauren bought a mountain house in southwestern Pennsylvania and Stephen immediately dove in, turning it into a full-scale renovation project. Between Stephen’s renovation skills and borderline concerning attention to detail, and Lauren’s love of design, it’s slowly becoming our favorite place to escape, host friends and family, and escape the chaos of the D.C. area whenever needed.

Steelers game day photo — Our first Steelers vs. Commanders game: loud opinions, happy chaos, and somehow still romantic.

Game days became their own tradition, and everyone around us learned quickly that Lauren and Stephen come with strong NFL opinions and excellent snack planning. In a testament to true love, our relationship survived our first Steelers vs Commanders game (though it was certainly a trying day).

Lauren and Stephen during their proposal on the ski slope — The proposal! (captured by a legendary stranger in a Hawaiian shirt)

Stephen proposed at Seven Springs, where Lauren grew up skiing, just fifteen minutes from the mountain house we now spend so much time in. The proposal itself was almost perfect, except for the part where Lauren didn’t initially realize it was happening because Stephen was on a snowboard and appeared to be kneeling on both knees instead of one. After convincing her to stop skiing away long enough to ask the question, he got an immediate yes.

ChatGPT's imagined version of the mystery yinzer hero skiing in a Hawaiian shirt — ChatGPT's best guess at what our yinzer mystery hero looked like since we forgot to take a picture of him...forever part of our engagement lore!

To make the moment even better, a true Pittsburgh hero skiing by in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt noticed what was happening, snapped photos for us, and somehow found us later on the mountain to send them over. Honestly, we couldn’t have planned a more perfect ending to the day ourselves.