TID BITS
Parth did! He slid into Drithi's Instagram DMs after seeing her at an event in DC. No, it wasn't weird at all ;)
..and five years later we are planning our big fat Indian wedding!
Drithi grew up in the "big" city of Dubai, moved across the world to Florida for undergrad and later moved to DC for grad school, where she met Parth. She now lives in Jersey City with Parth while working at Amazon in the Big Apple (New York). Drithi loves to travel, explore new coffee shops in NYC and occasionally go on hikes in Upstate NY.
Parth grew up in Virginia, went to undergrad at UVA before moving to NYC for his software engineering job at Robinhood. He was later convinced to move to Jersey City with Drithi (there was a lot of convincing involved). Parth loves to travel, be outdoors, losing in Fantasy Football (iykyk) and talking all things Finance!
Definitely the time we both got stuck overnight on the New Jersey transit train due to heavy rains. We took the train from NYC to Central Jersey (where Drithi used to live) and unfortunately had to stop midway during a torrential downpour. Hours later we were able to get an Uber, but due to heavy flooding our driver was not able to drop us home. We politely asked him drive us back to the train station where we decided to sleep overnight. We were finally able to get on a bus to go back home the next morning at 8 AM.
I think we both learned a valuable lesson on the New Jersey public transportation system that night ;)
Parth and Drithi planned a trip together to Hawaii in November 2022. Parth knew Drithi always gets her nails done prior to any trip she goes on and used that as an opportunity to plan a proposal. Drithi & Parth LOVE the beach (so much so that their wedding will be at the beach!) and so Parth decided to propose at Baldwin Beach Park in Maui, Hawaii on 11/11/22 (even the date was so perfect!)
One thing they will never agree on is that Drithi had a hunch that a proposal was coming, but Parth would like to think he did a great job keeping the entire proposal a surprise!
Unanimous vote - Mediterranean. You can find us exploring Mediterranean restaurants in the city during most of our date nights. We try really hard to explore other cuisines but you can't keep the spicy chicken kebabs away from Parth and the falafels away from Drithi, that remind her of home :)
seeing all our favorite people in the same place celebrating our love + all the dancing and food! and of course getting a vacation out of it in Jamaica!
Drithi: He makes me laugh....and you might say the bar is low when it comes to making me laugh (iykyk), but I am glad that I get to marry someone who will never make any moment in my life dull and always be ready for an adventure! I do think an area of improvement for him is to get better at Fantasy Football ;)
Parth: Drithi is one of the most compassionate and giving person I have met. She has taught me to always go above and beyond in everything. Even small things like never going "empty handed" to someone's home to pushing me to reconnect with people who have fallen out of my life. She completes my other half and continues to make me a better person everyday!
Drithi: traveling - there is not a single person in this world that's easy to travel with than Parth. I also love being the planner of the relationship and he agrees to any adventure I suggest on the table :)
Parth: trying to convince Drithi to watch Bollywood movies together because I know how much they annoy her.
Our first date was at CycleBar (believe it or not!) in Arlington, VA - an indoor, high intensity cycling class. Our cycles were assigned to us prior to class and of course, we were assigned cycles furthest from each other in the room. Later after class, Parth offered to drop Drithi back to her apartment, resulting in a solid 10 minute conversation during the drive.
4 years later we both agree that there is no other better way to get to know someone than in a sweaty, competitive environment, where we were obviously looking our absolute best ;)