How They Met
Jered and Erika were introduced by a mutual friend in April 2009. Erika was hanging out with the friend at a local T.G.I.Fridays when Jered showed up that first night. Erika had recently finished at Towson University and Jered was finishing up his bachelors degree. While going to local bars with their mutual friends in Towson for happy hours and on the weekends, Jered and Erika got to know each other better. They decided to officially start dating in September 2009.
After dating for about 6 months, the couple started talking about the possibility of living together. In her spare time, Erika started looking for a new job, in Baltimore and in St. Mary's County, just for the heck of it. She wanted a job that didn't take her nights and weekends, so she started looking at positions with a bank. She found a job and interviewed; voila! she was offered a position in a southern Maryland bank and she accepted. Next came the tricky part, finding an apartment that wasn't sketchy, was affordable, and was basically awesome. After more research, they found the perfect apartment (although it's on the first floor with noisy kids above them)! The only problem, it wasn't available until the end of June. Erika was scheduled to start in her branch at the beginning of June. Thanks to Jered's office-mate, Erika was able to move down to southern Maryland and start work at her branch.
After dating for about 6 months, the couple started talking about the possibility of living together. In her spare time, Erika started looking for a new job, in Baltimore and in St. Mary's County, just for the heck of it. She wanted a job that didn't take her nights and weekends, so she started looking at positions with a bank. She found a job and interviewed; voila! she was offered a position in a southern Maryland bank and she accepted. Next came the tricky part, finding an apartment that wasn't sketchy, was affordable, and was basically awesome. After more research, they found the perfect apartment (although it's on the first floor with noisy kids above them)! The only problem, it wasn't available until the end of June. Erika was scheduled to start in her branch at the beginning of June. Thanks to Jered's office-mate, Erika was able to move down to southern Maryland and start work at her branch.
The Proposal
Jered and Erika were getting ready to celebrate their one year anniversary. Erika does not like surprises, so she kept bugging Jered (for about two weeks) about what he was getting her (he started it by telling her he got her something to begin with). Finally, on a lazy Saturday, after more pestering, Jered finally asked, "do you really want to know?" Erika thought about it for a minute or two, and said yes she really wanted to know. He told her to cover her eyes while he went and got it from the hiding place Erika could not find. When he came back to the couch where Erika was sitting, he told her to open her eyes. Erika was so surprised she asked what the heck that was, Jered answered, "exactly what you think it is." Still in shock, Erika didn't know what to think until Jered asked if she would marry him. She said, "yes," obviously.