Nneka & Eryan

Nneka and Eryan met at Yale University, yada yada yada, they’re getting married! Yay!

Just kidding. Nneka and Eryan met at Yale University during her freshman year (his junior year) when she cold-called him while selling tickets for the Black Solidarity Conference. So this story starts out with her butchering the pronunciation of his name. Fortunately, (for her) he didn’t take it personally. They were mostly friends of friends until the end of Eryan’s senior year, when he decided to come out of seclusion. This led to playing Atari in Nneka’s room and taking some spectacular photos of Nneka studying at her desk for his photography class. Exciting!

They kept in touch (strictly as friends) during the year after he graduated. Once Eryan decided to move to Chicago for law school he contacted Nneka for some advice about living there. In the beginning of the summer of 2002, he asked her if he could stay with her for a week out in Northbrook in her corporate housing while he looked for an apartment. If he had known how far from the city it actually was, he might not have asked. Fortunately, (for him) he didn’t. That was when Nneka showed Eryan all the luxuries of the Northwest suburbs that they still frequent to this day - good seafood at Bob Chinn’s Crabhouse and walking around outdoor malls like Old Orchard. Unbeknownst to the two of them, they also ended up picking out their future first apartment together. But they were still just friends. Really.

Halfway through the trip, on June 9th, they ended up spending the perfect day together, just hanging out at Navy Pier. He ended up taking her to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (which became another favorite place of theirs, for a while) under the guise of thanking her for her hospitality, hoping that she would catch the same kind of feelings he was developing. But, she played her cards pretty close to the vest. Unfortunately, he didn’t get up the nerve to say something to her before he left for the airport to head back to New York. As a result, he spent half the plane ride kicking himself for not wanting to make things awkward while he was staying with her, and the other half putting his thoughts into an email, which he sent as soon as he landed. Of course it made her cry.

And the rest, as they say, is history.