 Yes, we are here. We're still here. We're not going anywhere. Ryan Rucco here with my good friend, Michael Gravey. Normally we'd be in the midst of a very busy Brooklyn Nets march right now, but instead we're hanging at home. Michael, you know, today you and I get to dive into one of our favorite subjects. Yes. That's love. But before we do that, I just want to remind our audience as we continue to try and come up with ways to stay engaged with all you guys because we miss you. And we miss, you know, that connection we have on a daily basis, especially this time of year when the Nets and Yankees converge. And we got NYC FC going too. And everything's all happening at once. We want to remind you that you can stay engaged with us by tweeting at yes network with the hashtag yes mailbag. Michael, I know a lot of people, they approach quarantine life and they say like, Oh man, are you guys fighting yet? And I know that me and you are both thinking about our fiance's and our engaged life. And we're both like fighting. No, we're loving this time. Right. You love him this time with your one. No question. It's, it's like, you know, there are a lot of different types of things. You know, we, you know, have to travel a lot. We have to be on the road a lot. And so to be able to have this time to connect to binge watch something, you know, in the same place as opposed to did you watch just yet or that type of thing. And just, just having that, that closeness that you don't get to really get when you're on the road. During the NBA schedule. No, it's, it's time that you really cherish and you really value. So I know you're in the exact same boat. No doubt, man. I mean, it's, look, we all know the, the specter of what everybody's dealing with is, it's daunting and it's dire. And there are, you know, there are actual life and death circumstances that people are dealing with right now. Within the scope of that, as we all are, you know, you know, at best disoriented at in this moment, you try and find silver linings, right? And for me, the biggest silver lining in all this has been getting to spend every day with my fiance, Andrea, because she travels for work. I traveled work like you were just talking about Michael with our schedules. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's great. Been watching shows together. You know, just, you know, whatever it is, like even doing like, you know, workouts together, getting to spend time with your best friend is, is pretty special. And as you can already tell, probably Michael and I are, we're big time romantics. So I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're we're. And as you can already tell probably Michael and I are, we're big time romantics. So I feel like it's only right, Michael, for you to take us through your engagement story, because we both have sort of similar engagement stories that led us to this path to engage life in quarantine life. So why don't you tell us how you ended up getting engaged? Yeah. So, so quick back story. I've been in sports broadcasting for, you know, a long time, junior year of high school is when I started, you know, announcing and doing games, things like that, but I've also been like a huge fan of like fashion and photography for a very long time. My great grandfather always had a camera. One of my first jobs was at a clothing department store and was into fashion, that whole thing. And then years later, I saw a Bill Cunningham documentary on fashion photography and it made me just like really want to shoot people. And that led to working with models and this happened right around the time that the S network opportunity came. And so I would shoot in New York and then we'll be on the road. Let's say for example, in Houston, if we had an off day, I would work with someone in Houston, the next city, try to work with someone there. So over the course of about a year and a half, I had worked with about 200 people and it was all about the art, the fun, that whole thing. And then in August of 2018, set up a photo shoot with the lady, she comes in as something as simple as recognizing the music that was playing flamenco sketches by Miles Davis, led to a conversation about jazz, places to hear it live. My photography books led to a conversation about Hellman Newton. And she had an image of Hellman Newton image actually saved on her phone that led to a conversation about photography art, different people that inspired us. And it just went from that. And so I didn't immediately ask her out. It came a couple of days later where she was telling, talking about me to her brother and her brother said, just ask him, just ask him. And he took her phone and actually sent me a message saying I would love to see you again. And then I responded and that led to our first date and it confirmed our connection. And so I stopped working with other people after that in terms of photography and I only shot her. And so summer of this past summer 2019, I just had the idea of, I'm gonna take some of the work that we've done. We shot all over the place. We've done a lot of photoshoots together. I'm gonna take some of the images of the work that we have done together. I'm gonna rent a gallery out in New York, frame, blow some of these images up. I'm gonna invite some of her friends and family, some of my friends and family and just surprise her with our work. And so we came, we had dinner, we walked in, didn't suspect a thing. There was a hidden door, it was a sliding door where friends and family were opened it up and she was just floored as everybody came in and just the love of the whole night and then popping the question, it was just something that was unique to us given the fact that our friendship and our love was based on photography and that type of connection. I love that man, I love that story. And I also love, and it's wild, that both of us proposed in art galleries. Like, how crazy is that? That's bananas. We never talked about it. It's so crazy. Like, I don't have the artistic ability that Michael Grady has, okay? And my fiance, Andrea, doesn't necessarily have that artistic ability either, although she is definitely more talented in art than I am. But sort of like similarly, man, when I knew I wanted to get engaged, I was like, okay, I wanna come up with something unique, right? Same thing you were thinking, right? How am I going to do this? And we had taken a liking to, and one of the things we had done early on is go to different art galleries and really enjoyed that process. And we had done it in Florence and Hawaii. And I had always thought of, I had a cousin who when she got proposed to by her husband, shout out to Laura and Eric, they had always done puzzles. Like one night of the week they would always do a puzzle together. And he had a puzzle done. And in the puzzle, and there's more backstory, but for brevity's sake, I'll take that part of it because it's really amazing. But in the puzzle, he had written Will You Marry Me? Actually on an ice cream truck in the puzzle, which is a whole different story that I'll leave out. But I remember thinking like, that is so clever. I love it. And it inspired me for years before I had ever had the incredible, alchemistic opportunity to meet my wonderful fiance, thinking when I meet that person, I want to do something creative. So anyway, I had this idea of some form of art to ask her to marry me. And I was thinking about how to do it. And I was like, okay, there's this artist I work with, graphics joker on Twitter. He does a lot of cartoon stuff for different sports teams and stuff. He's done stuff for the Michael K show. And he's done different pieces for me. And I said, hey, I have this idea. Like what if, you know, you did a painting of a picture of me and Andrea. And at the bottom, instead of signing your name, you signed Will You Marry Me? And he was like, oh, I love it. You know, whatever. And so I kind of slightly figured out what picture Andrea liked without her knowing what I was doing, right? But then I also had to figure out, well, how am I gonna actually like them present the picture? And I thought about, do I rent out a restaurant? How do I do this, et cetera? And my sister's like, you know, I think Ethan Valorino's father owns an art gallery. Now, Ethan Valorino is a kid who she went to seventh and eighth grade with, whose sister was in high school, or was in junior high with me, who we haven't seen, talked to, or thought about quite frankly in years, okay? But I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try and reach out to Mr. Valorino, right? I do, he does have an art gallery. His wouldn't work, but he was so in love with the idea of me presenting this painting at an art gallery that he himself hunted down other friends of his whose galleries might work. I end up finding a gallery that would work. We have fake dinner plans with friends. I'd set up a meeting at the gallery ahead of time. We get there and basically I had arranged with the women there like to say like, oh, Mr. Valorino actually brought something special for you guys, we'll go get it. As we're walking around the gallery, they put the painting on the wall and I slowly guide Andrea there. And I'm like, what do you think about this one? And she's like, what? And at first she just thinks like, this is the craziest gift ever. And so I get down, I hold her hand, say some nice things, and then I say, you wanna see who the artist is of this painting. And it said, will period you, period marry me. And so I got engaged in the art gallery there to Andrea. A couple of things real quick, cause I know we're tight on time. One, how nervous were you before? It's what's funny is it's not nervous about it happening, right? It's nervous about the execution of it all going, right? So incredibly nervous, like ridiculously nervous just for that. Yes, yes, so many things have to go right and you're being really anal about it because you want it to go whole flawlessly. So I share that with you. One question that I get a lot from Broadcast, I'm sure you've been asked the same question at least a few times, not just about how you got to where you are, but knowing that you're in a relationship, knowing that you're in a happy relationship, what advice would you give to someone who is balancing a hectic work life with a relationship? Yeah, I think the key is just communication, right? Like being totally open and honest about everything. Like, and for me, you know, I think it's also finding that partner who supports your dream, right? Like Andrea cares so much about my career last year. We had all these plans in summer of 2019 for different things we were gonna do and they got scrapped because of me having to fill in on Yankee so much. And the thing that made me feel okay with it was Andrea is going to me and saying, I want you to know, this is a rare moment in time, you do whatever you have to for your career right now. We'll figure out the rest. And that, if you have the right partner, I think they understand that balance. Yeah, that's totally right. I feel you completely on that. Communication is such a big part. It's not easy. Things are gonna go wrong. That you think that something's gonna work out on a certain date may not necessarily work out, but that understanding from your partner and that communication, I think, eases those things. And again, when you're right with the right person, you know, everything will work out the way that it's supposed to. It's not easy, but when it's a beautiful relationship, man, it's really special, no question. It's the best thing in the world when it's right, man. It really is. Michael, what do you think? Should we just do another one next? We got like love doctor advice or something? Yeah, right. We can take questions. We can have some fun with this. Exactly. Well, dude, this was fun. Can't wait to do it again. I love your story. I love your love and I love that we got to share it here today. And for everybody, you know, if you have those love questions or just questions in general, make sure you tweet at Yes Network with the hashtag YesMailBat.