Bridget's path to Saint Monica's started with a baptism (not hers). When her cousin Geoff and his wife Annie asked her to be a godparent to their son Santos, she ended up in a baptism prep class at a parish she'd never been to. Geoff suggested she check out the young adult ministry, YMA, and she thought: church friends? I don't know about that. She went anyway, made a ton of friends, and of course became social chair.

Eric has a similar St. Monica’s story. His family told him: you're living in LA now, you should check out Saint Monica's, we have family connections there. So he showed up to an Oktoberfest party Bridget was hosting. They met at the door, where she was checking people in. Eric remembers that moment clearly. Eric then joined the leadership team for the weekly Tuesday night YMA get togethers. Bridget remembers chatting with him at various YMA events through 2019, and being on a lot of the same Zooms during COVID.

Then came May 2021. They both signed up for the YMA retreat at the Serra Retreat House, a Catholic retreat center perched above the ocean in Malibu. Bridget was running late from work and missed dinner and the opening of the evening, but made it in time to find everyone gathered in the courtyard. Eric came up to her and said he'd noticed she wasn't there earlier and was worried she wasn't going to make it. She filed that away.

Saturday they went through the retreat together; the talks, the activities, meals, and spent most of the day hanging out. That night, it was too beautiful outside to call it early. The sky was clear and the ocean breeze was lovely. Bridget grabbed a blanket and headed out to the lawn. She texted Eric: "If you haven't called it a night, there's pretty decent star gazing out at the point." He replied: "I'm gonna have to check it out." They stayed out there chatting for a couple hours.

The next day, Eric asked her out for that following Friday and they have been together ever since. What neither of them knew was that falling for someone after a YMA retreat is something of a Saint Monica's cliche.

Last summer, Eric knew that surprising Bridget was going to be difficult, so he chose a warm Thursday in September, a weekday when she wouldn't be expecting anything. He enlisted her mom to get her to Corona del Mar Beach in Newport Beach for what Bridget thought was a normal evening beach walk. She thought Eric was in San Diego with his family. He was not. He was standing on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and he proposed just after the sun dipped below the horizon.