our love story

Love Story (The College of New Jersey, April 2014)
Joe and Alex’s story began at The College of New Jersey during the spring semester in 2014. Joe had just wrapped up his sophomore season on the men’s swim team, while Alex was gearing up for her first spring track season as a freshman. The guys swim team and girls track team were always close at TCNJ, so it was inevitable that Joe and Alex would eventually cross paths. Alex made the mistake of telling one of her teammates she thought Joe was “cute”, which snowballed into Joe asking for Alex’s number. Joe knew who Alex was as she consistently caught his eye sitting in Eickhoff with her teammates after practice. 

Joe and Alex started texting, not knowing where it was headed. Texting led to Joe asking Alex to hang out…he pulled out all the stops and set up a “romantic” first date in his tiny dorm room by laying out his twin bed comforter on the floor and downloading The Shining off of an illegal movie streaming site. Alex hated scary movies, but had to play it cool because she wanted to impress him.

After the movie and hours of talking, Joe walked Alex across campus back to her freshman dorm. Joe felt so good about their first date that he wasted no time asking her to hang out again. 

After that night, Joe and Alex were inseparable. Between hanging at the swim house, Eickhoff dinner dates, and study sessions at the lib, the two did everything together. Alex practically became the eighth housemate of the guys swim house because she spent more time there than at her own. 

Post college, Alex accepted her first teaching job back in Bergen County and Joe started a new job in North Jersey. The two moved in together in September 2017 and have been successfully “adulting” together ever since.

The Proposal (Ocean City, NJ October 12, 2019)
Anyone that knows Joe and Alex knows that they are total beach people. During their first 5 years of dating, Joe would always join the Paspalas family for a week in August down in Ocean City, NJ. 

Every summer in OC, Alex would force Joe to take a beach walk down to the southern tip of the island, also known as Corson’s Inlet State Park. The beach at Corson’s is beautiful, and Alex loved searching for the huge conch shells there. Joe could see that it was Alex’s happy place and knew that it would be the place he would eventually propose. 

When Alex’s parents finally closed on a beach house in Ocean City, it made everything possible for the off-season proposal Joe had pictured in his head. He planned the proposal for the early fall, when the weather was still beautiful and the beaches were less crowded. 

For those of you that know Alex, she is the ultimate planner and impossible to surprise. After weeks of coordinating with Christina (Alex’s sister) and Becca (Joe’s sister), they decided October 12th would be the big day. Lucky for Joe, the afternoon of October 12th was a perfect 70 degrees and sunny. Alex was all for Joe’s idea to drive his truck onto the beach at Corson’s Inlet that afternoon. Little did she know, Joe had Christina and Becca at the proposal spot on Corson’s, meeting the photographer he hired to capture the moment. 

As the couple drove onto the beach, Alex suggested they turn around when they passed a sign that read “Vehicles Allowed by Permit Only”, but Joe knew he had to keep driving anyway (oops). With Christina and Becca hidden in the sand dunes, Alex and Joe hopped out of Joe’s truck and ran to the water. As Joe got down on one knee, he knew that the ultimate planner had not planned for this. In fact, Alex was so surprised that Joe had to pop the question twice because she was so in shock she didn’t hear him ask the first time. 

After the proposal, Joe had arranged for both families to be waiting at the Paspalas’ beach house to celebrate!