Dear JDate,

I signed up for JDate for the first time after my college graduation in 2003. My mother offered to fund this venture in the hopes that I find that “nice Jewish boy” that every Jewish mother dreams about for her child. On and off for the next four years I met some of the most diverse, bizarre, and interesting Jews from all over the Tri-State area. Dozens of dates, four years, three jobs, and two apartments later, I was finally settling down in Hoboken, NJ. I decided that I would give JDate just one more try.

I laid eyes upon Evan for the first time after I did a search for guys in Hoboken. It was a very brief profile with blurry pictures of a blonde head, but there was something about him that caught my attention. His love for music, Italian food and the Yankees was enough for me to take a chance and email him.

He wrote me back the next day.

For the next month, we emailed and exchanged text messages and phone calls, but it wasn’t until September 4, 2007 that we met for the first time. Our first date was at a bar in Tribeca called QDT which stood for Quality Drinking Time. He talked for most of the date, as I shyly nodded and smiled, unsure if this was going to be another date I would later complain about to my girlfriends.

I agreed to a second date, this time in Hoboken. It was September 12, 2007 and we went out for Italian food and talked about how ironic it was that both his sister and my brother met their spouses on JDate! We joked that if we got married our parents would owe them a whole lot more than the $39.95 a month they charge. After dinner, we walked over to a pier in Jersey City that has an amazing view of downtown Manhattan. At this point, I realized there was something very special about him and I was so happy I had given him another chance. With the World Trade Center memorial lights shining through the clouds across the river, we had our first kiss.

Exactly one year later, on September 12, 2008, Evan took me out to the same Italian restaurant in Hoboken. He ordered us the exact same thing and after dinner we went over to the pier to see the World Trade Center memorial lights again. This time it was raining. Under the cover of two giant golf umbrellas, in the same spot of our first kiss, Evan got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

On October 11, 2009 my best friend will become my husband.

Thank you JDate for bringing us together and for giving us the greatest gift we could ever ask for…each other.

Carly & Evan
Hoboken, New Jersey

Update: Carly & Evan got married and below is a photo of their JFamily at the wedding!

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