Getting closer one (very) late dinner at a time

Alaina Collura and Joseph Durkin got to know each other better over late-night meals, one of which, at Spotted Pig in August 2016, was marked a turning point in their relationship.

Alaina Korinne Collura had just been transferred to a new department at the accounting firm Ernst & Young in New York when she was put on a project with Joseph Vincent Durkin, in March 2015.

Mr. Durkin, who led the project, first tasked Ms Collura with a "busy job", she said. Wanting to get more involved, she peppered him with many questions to better understand how she could contribute. It wasn't long before they realized they had more to say than financial services.

Both were born in New York — she in the Bronx , him in Brooklyn — before their families moved to the suburbs. Ms. Collura grew up in Pelham, N.Y., and Mr. Durkin in Matawan, N.J. (Her mother, Mary Durkin, held senior financial positions at The New York Times for more than 30 years.) They also share a love for restaurants . , and bonded by their passion for trying new restaurants.

Ms. Collura, 31, and Mr. Durkin, 33, quickly developed a friendship as they spent more time together at the office, at corporate happy hours and at casual late dinners - some very late, as they came after evening work events.

It was one of those very late dinners, in August 2016, when they had their first date. Interested in the possibility of being more than friends, Mr. Durkin officially asked Ms. Collura out for a midnight meal at Spotted Pig, the now closed gastropub in Manhattan's West Village, after a work event. p>

While the two ate steak, they had a "fun and easy" conversation, as Mr. Durkin put it, that lasted two hours. "We have a very similar sense of humor," he said.

After that date, it was clear to both "that we were going to continue to see us". Mr. Durkin added, noting that once they officially started dating, the two colleagues revealed their relationship to their human resources department.

In October 2016, on the morning of Mrs. Collura's birthday, he surprised her with three words: I love you. Ms. Collura, although caught off guard, immediately reciprocated. Two years later, in October 2018, they moved into an apartment together in Astoria, Queens.

[Click here to read this week's featured couples .]

Mrs. Collura, who graduated from Quinnipiac University and earned a master's degree in accounting from Pace University, now works as an accountant in the New York office of RSM US LLP, an accounting firm. Mr. Durkin, a graduate of Fordham, where he also earned a master's degree in accounting, is now vice president of finance at Churchill Asset Management, an investment firm, in New York.

He proposed on July 4, 2020, while the two were traveling in Montauk, N.Y., with his family. Ms Collura became suspicious that morning when she noticed Mr Durkin had dressed in khaki shorts, a departure from his usual sportswear. But she assumed it was because they were going to meet a couple in Sag Harbor, N.Y., whose golden retriever they were considering adopting. (Mr. Durkin has always loved golden retrievers.)

After meeting the couple and the dog, the two took a walk on Long Wharf Pier in Sag Harbor , at the end of which Mr. Durkin asked Mrs. Collura to marry him. Standing nearby was his sister, disguised as what he described as "a large overco...