Britt and Michael met in 2017, four years after they’d each moved to New York City and landed on opposite sides of the beautiful 500-acre Prospect Park in Brooklyn. (Fun fact: Prospect Park was built by the same architects as Central Park!)

Michael planned their first date, which took place on June 25, a warm Sunday afternoon. It started at Hot Bird, a locally beloved beer garden at the edge of Cobble Hill, followed by a walk through nearby Prospect Park in search of the goat herd that lived there at the time, in the aptly named Vale of Cashmere.

Britt and Michael never found the goats that afternoon — but they did know, almost immediately, that there was a connection. They talked the whole way through the park, sharing favorite authors, jokes, albums and pastimes.

Before they knew it, that first date had stretched on for hours, and as they moved among the trees and meadows, eventually the fireflies came out — magic bringers in both Bantu and Polish folklore (two cultures woven into Britt and Michael’s respective heritage).

Years later, Michael proposed to Britt on a private boat he rented on the Hudson — just the two of them, passing beneath the Statue of Liberty as they rounded the harbor. They sailed past the tip of Manhattan and into the East River, then floated along the shoreline for another hour afterward, drawing a few waves and cheers from passersby who could piece together that two people had just gotten engaged.

To close out the night they celebrated with dinner at The View, the city’s only revolving restaurant, high above the lights, buildings and billboards of Times Square — 360 degrees of Manhattan turning slowly past their windows, as they took in the city where they’d met, fallen in love and would soon be married.