Lani & Jeff

During our early days at Hall High, we had many mutual friends but didn’t officially meet until sophomore year when Lani had a prophetic dream about Jeff (true story) and became determined to be his friend. Jeff was just happy that a girl wanted to talk to him. We became fast friends. In the years that followed, we bonded over our classes – Chem, English, Physics, and more. Lani even joined Jeff at Robotics Club one evening (but never went back).

While we were just friends in this period of our lives, Jeff’s mom had a tendency to ask about Lani and seemed to think he was interested in her even back then.

It wasn’t until Junior Prom that we found out our friendship was truly meant to be. At prom pictures, Lani’s Dad recognized Jeff’s grandma and realized that Lani’s Bubbe, Shirley, and Jeff’s grandma, Beverly, were also friends who graduated Hall High School together (61 years before we did).

We remained good friends throughout college, always spending time together on breaks and holidays. Our Junior year we were sent back to West Hartford due to the pandemic. That summer, we spent countless nights being goofy with friends in various backyards, dining outside in WeHa Center, and making new s’mores variations.
One night, our other friends bailed on our plans but the two of us hung out anyway. We sat on Jeff’s back porch in the middle of a thunderstorm and talked the night away. We then spent the remaining days of summer together and haven’t stopped hanging out since!!

Heading back to our respective campuses, we kept talking every day. We started watching movies over FaceTime and playing endless hours of Minecraft together. Finally, on Lani’s 21st birthday, Jeff drove 6 hours to Williamsburg to surprise her and proceeded to drive her 6 hours back up to Lafayette to spend the week together.

Throughout the year, we’d spend week-long trips visiting each other and exploring each others college towns. Some would argue Colonial Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, and College Creek have a slight advantage over the local Easton hot spots.

After a year of long-distance we were both back in WeHa for the summer where we cooked fun recipes, traveled back and forth to New Hampshire, and watched movies in Jeff’s basement.

In the fall of 2021 Lani moved to NYC to start her big girl finance job while Jeff finished his final semester in Easton.

Long distance continued when Jeff moved home for a few months working for the family business. He was able to visit a bit more frequently and was in NYC nearly every weekend. Finally, our long distance became short distance when Jeff joined Lani in the city to get his Masters in Industrial Engineering at NYU.

We spent countless days exploring new neighborhoods, going to Mets games, trying cool restaurants, and throwing rooftop parties at Lani’s East Village apartment.

In 2024, we moved up to the UES together and turned our short distance into no distance at all.

Jeff convinced Lani that his parents would be visiting for the weekend so that her calendar would be booked up. When they conveniently cancelled their trip last minute, Jeff suggested we still make the most of the weekend and have an evening picnic in Central Park.

We spent the afternoon picking out the finest cheeses and crackers from Trader Joes. Jeff was sweatier than usual but Lani didn’t notice.

Lani started to suspect something was up when Jeff suggested she wear her nice blue dress to the park. We sat down to our picnic along the Bridle Path and Lani set up a beautiful charcuterie board. Lani really knew something was up when Jeff barely touched the cured meats and assorted cheeses (Lactaid was present).

After sitting and enjoying our picnic for longer than anticipated, Jeff asked Lani to marry him while a photographer hid in the bushes.

Jeff kept up the ruse that he had nothing else planned for the night, until we walked through the door to a full (and very warm) apartment with our friends waiting to surprise Lani and celebrate with us.