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Digital love: Couple goes from Tinder to #gio2016

 
Kristina noticed Nick's Snapchat username was listed in his Instagram bio, so she addedhim with no intentions of actually sending him any photos.
Kristina noticed Nick's Snapchat username was listed in his Instagram bio, so she addedhim with no intentions of actually sending him any photos.
Published June 4, 2015

One day in late November 2013, Nick Giovannucci was bored, playing on his iPhone. He was on Tinder, the dating app that matches your profile with eligible others based on shared interests and geography, then asks you to swipe right if you like what you see or left if you don't. If both parties swipe right, it's a match.

A pretty girl illuminated his screen: "Kristina, 21."

But something was off. Nick was in Tempe, Ariz. "Kristina, 21" was a student at the University of Florida, 2,000 miles away.

Maybe she's in Arizona, he thought.

He swiped right.

Tucked into bed in Gainesville, Kristina Orlando swiped right on "Nick, 21," too, laughing at one of his selfies with a guitar. It was a match. She picked only boys who lived far away, so there was never a chance she'd have to meet one in person.

What happened next is the story of love in the Digital Age.

Full disclosure here. Kristina was my roommate at UF. I'd taken the semester off to intern at the Tampa Bay Times when she texted me to tell me about her new fling.

Snap start

Kristina noticed Nick's Snapchat username was listed in his Instagram bio, so she added him with no intentions of actually sending him any photos.

He received a notification that some user added him. Could it be her?

Nick sent a "snap" asking who this mystery friend was. Kristina stopped at an intersection. Well this is awkward, she thought.

When the text limit on Snapchat photos reached its capacity, Kristina got tired of sending only a few words at a time. She gave Nick her cell number. Progress.

Getting to know each other

They talked about their majors, what they did for fun, where they were from. She learned he was chasing a mechanical engineering degree at Arizona State, was in a rock band and used to be a Boy Scout. He learned about her family, her obsession with modeling and fashion, and how they had both visited Hawaii.

Nick had never been to Florida.

Kristina said he should come visit her at UF.

Texts turned into essays. Flirty emojis began to punctuate their paragraphs.

They became friends on Facebook.

Connecting

She had never felt a connection this deep with anyone, much less over a Wi-Fi connection.

"You're the best thing that's happened to me all year," she texted Nick on New Year's Eve.

They discovered that their spring breaks were just a week apart.

Live via video

They turned to Skype to video chat. They blushed when they finally saw each other in real time. Brief video chats grew into five-hour Skype calls. Nick would even set his iPhone on his car's dashboard and talk to Kristina during his commute to and from his internship.

'I love you"

They tagged each other in Facebook statuses, tweeted at each other and uploaded pictures of themselves together on Instagram. They had to switch to unlimited data plans to accommodate their digital fondness.

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One night, Kristina drank a little too much at a party and impulsively called Nick on FaceTime. She brazenly slurred those three words: "I love you."

He was uneasy about confessing his love to her without meeting her in person. But, he couldn't deny that the feeling was mutual.

Nick bought a plane ticket with savings from his internship.

The anticipation mounted.

The real thing

When the day finally came, she slipped on a new dress, carefully applied her makeup. She paced around the airport.

He recognized her immediately. He ran to her, lifted her up and hugged her. They shared their first kiss. She was way more than pixels.

"You are more perfect than I ever thought," he said.

They ate at Satchel's, ate Hare Krishna lunch on the lawn of UF's Plaza of the Americas, canoed in Lake Wauburg. He followed her to class.

After two nights and a few ambiguously romantic social media posts, they finally went public with their relationship. It was Facebook official.

Stuck apart

She cried hard the day he left.

He reassured her he would be back, perhaps as a UF student.

Nick pleaded with the UF registrar's office to transfer his scholarship, but he couldn't. Stuck in their respective schools, they dubbed themselves "Sun Gators."

Ready to fly

Nick opened a credit card loaded with thousands of Delta airline miles. He booked a flight after his final exams in May to visit Kristina in her hometown, Cooper City, and meet her family.

Swapping states

They completed a Florida bucket list in real time. Key West, Fort Lauderdale Beach, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Disney World. Then it was her turn to visit Arizona. She flew back with him, saw the Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyon.

Picture perfect

Nick's friend offered to take good photos of the couple free of charge, and the photos were promptly posted on Facebook and Instagram. Distant acquaintances and their parents' family friends joined the cult following their romance.

Experts in love

Their power-couple status began gaining traction online. Friends flocked to Nick for advice on long-distance relationships.

Ready to pop

Nick asked Kristina's father for her hand in marriage and started researching engagement rings. He was going for quality, not size.

They flew back and forth across the country to see each other.

She bought him a GoPro camera for Christmas so they could further document their relationship.

A year online

A year had passed since the Tinder fluke.

In between these trips, they kept their love current with #tbt, which is honored by posting old photos, or #mcm ("Man Crush Monday") and #wcw ("Women Crush Wednesday"). They installed flight-tracking apps to see where the other was while in the air.

Pictures of themselves dominated their social media. "Monthaverseries" were celebrated as digital milestones.

On bended knee

In between Valentine's Day and heaps of homework in his last semester of college, Nick planned the proposal. He got one of Kristina's friends to draw up posters asking her to marry him.

Nick knew Kristina's father had wanted to propose to her mother in front of the fountain in the Italy pavilion at Epcot 26 years before, but the fountain was closed and he had to settle for France. For the sake of tradition and the love of all things Italian, Nick took Kristina to Epcot.

They made their way over to the Italian fountain. Nick set up his GoPro to record on a tripod and bent down on one knee.

He rushed his few sweet words. She blushed and nodded yes. He slid a vintage ring with an infinity sign engraved in the band on her finger. Someone walked into frame and ruined the video, of course.

Within a few days, Nick uploaded the video to YouTube. They immediately shared their news across all platforms.

#gio2016

Nick and Kristina have spent 99 real-time days together from that serendipitous glitch on a dating app to their engagement.

They've set a temporary wedding date in April 2016.

Guests will be able to post about their wedding using the hashtag #gio2016.