How We Met
Back in late 2022, Matt was living in Dallas, working constantly, and promising himself to slow down and give love a chance after years away from dating. Lyka had just joined Hinge, and within two weeks, she reached out — Matt's very first connection on the app. He didn't even have time to set up a date with anyone else!
On New Year's Day, Matt drove 45 minutes to meet Lyka for coffee at Ascension in Addison. That coffee ended up keeping Matt awake all night, but we sat and chatted for hours. From day one, it was clear we were opposites: Matt, a quiet and reserved guy from New York, and Lyka, her usual loud, chatty self. But somehow, it worked effortlessly.
For our second date, Lyka planned a "casual walk" that accidentally turned into a 10-mile trek around White Rock Lake, followed by some much-needed Italian food. We survived it, and that epic walk has since become our favorite annual tradition.
Over the past few years, our relationship has blossomed into something incredibly peaceful, stable, and secure. Lyka brings endless adventure and pulls Matt out of his shell, while Matt is Lyka's quiet, loving safe harbor. He loves to remind her that the name Matthew means "gift from God" — though he always follows it up by saying Lyka is the real gift.
The Proposal
I actually had a tiny hint that a proposal might be on the horizon. Back in November, when my brother Prince was visiting, Matt accidentally let it slip that he had a ring! I spent the next month playfully teasing him about it, but honestly, I wasn't entirely sure if it was real or if he was just messing with me.
My suspicions officially peaked in December when he casually mentioned he had secured a dinner reservation for us at Shoyo on New Year's Eve. For context, Shoyo is an incredibly intimate, 14-seat sushi omakase restaurant. Reservations open on the first Monday of the month and sell out in about 15 minutes flat. Since I am almost always the designated planner for our dining adventures, the fact that he went out of his way to pull this off, on top of his November slip-up, told me something special was definitely brewing.
During dinner, he was quiet. I didn't think too much of it at the time; because of the intimate setup, I just happily chatted away with the people sitting next to us, giving them my rundown of other restaurant recommendations in the area. After an amazing dinner, we stepped outside. Right there, with no grand production or crowds of onlookers, Matt got down on one knee. It was so perfectly "us" — no fuss, no spectacle, just a quiet, beautiful moment between the two of us to close out the year. And of course, I said yes.
For me, this story begins many months earlier. The groundwork was laid subtly (or maybe not so) by simply gauging her receptiveness — steering conversations to the future, talking about our plans and ambitions.
It was on a long-haul flight home from Japan, I sat next to Lyka as she giggled away to episodes of the British TV show Taskmaster, that I steeled my resolve: I was going to marry this girl. I'd regrettably missed my chance to have a proper sit-down with the parents during Prince's (perfectly executed) wedding the week before, but oh well — nobody said this would be easy. And in retrospect, this was maybe the easiest decision I ever made. I knew it was right, and just needed to plan and execute.
So, that week in October, we made it home, and getting the ring was top of mind. Having decided a general outline of what I wanted for her, I found various ways to get out of work to ring shop over the next week or so, and ultimately pulled the trigger during a team building event I'd snuck out of. I hid it, not too well, in the house, and waited for the right time.
My real plan for the proposal was to do it at White Rock Lake in Dallas, an early date of ours that became a yearly tradition in January: scenic, quiet, personal, great for photos, somewhat poetic. But poetry sometimes writes itself, and when I was looking for a Christmas present that year I managed to score reservations to a restaurant where we shared another memorable date — on the eve of the anniversary of our first date (New Year's Eve). I decided it was kismet. Plus, if I chickened out, White Rock was just around the corner.
That night we dressed up nicely and went to this fancy omakase restaurant, me with a loose ring in my pocket, because the box was too big to hide. As we walked in, I remembered just how intimate this place was — too intimate for a proposal that didn't include the other guests. So we ate dinner and had a good time, while I did a not-too-good job of keeping my cool. When we finished eating, the time was upon me, and I got down on one knee on the street, in front of the restaurant in Greenville. The first person to congratulate us was a random teenager on a skateboard. Not exactly the poetry I imagined, but all's well that ends well.