Flickr: elena and dan

in August 2005 at the Maryland Institute College of Art, when they both enrolled in the two-year course, Exhibition Development Seminar. Despite their initial impressions of each other (she thought he was adorably hardcore, and he deemed her “too happy.”) they became fast friends. While they helped develop the exhibition At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland, they learned to lean on each other considerably; they realized quickly that class went by a lot more easily when you could be snarky in the corner over m&ms. By the time Dan graduated in December of 2007, they had shared birthdays (including a fateful whiskey shot on Elena’s 21st), watched many an episode of CSI (Vegas if they had a choice), and helped each other through meltdowns and breakups.

Unfortunately for both of them, Dan is horrible (miserable) at keeping in touch with friends, so when he moved back to Philadelphia to spend his life playing video games and eating hot pockets, it seemed like a death sentence to their friendship. After the holidays, Dan drove down for a visit. They had reached the point where they had started missing each other, and the timing was impeccable. Dan came over for an episode of CSI, and they ended up musing over why they had never dated- a subject that was uncharted waters for the two of them. Later that night they went out with friends, and out of nowhere they were holding hands. Before they knew it, they had kissed, and in doing so proved all of their friends right. People close to the two of them had long been claiming that they were in love and hiding it, something that brought on a chorus of “I told you so”s when they announced their relationship.

Their relationship was unique in that because they had been friends for so long they dove right into a serious relationship. After only a few months they were talking about the future, in very specific terms. Their options were limited because Elena had decided on the Peace Corps, something she had wanted to do for years. It seemed that the choice they had in front of them was either for her to go while he stayed home living out his former hot pocket fantasy life, or for both of them to stay. Then, out of nowhere the third, much more sensible option occurred to them. They had considered them both staying, him staying and her going, but they had never considered them both going. Dan decided that a career with the Peace Corps was the kind of dream he could adopt as his own, and in that a five-year plan was born.

They commissioned an artist to make their engagement rings, and on July 2, 2008, they proposed (both of them to each other, of course) at the restaurant Jaleo in Bethesda, Maryland.