Mr. Sinnott patiently answered her questions — no and six months ago — but people were gathering. “He said, ‘You know everyone’s looking at us, and you haven’t said yes’,” Ms. Rinehart said.

“I was like, ‘Of course the answer is yes, I thought that was a given,’” she said.

To celebrate, they went to the Regis Princeville Resort, now closed, and sat outside calling family and friends. “I think a lot of people were waiting for us to get engaged and were really happy about it,” Mr. Sinnott said. After all, the two of them had been dating for nearly five years, and had known each other since high school. Their first kiss had been two decades earlier.

Mr. Sinnott, 43, a director of sales at SmartPay, a bill-paying service, and Ms. Rinehart, 42, the vice president for public relations at Ann Magnin, a public relations and marketing company, live in Denver, but both grew up in Stroudsburg, Pa.

“I had a gigantic crush on him,” Ms. Rinehart said. “He was a lifeguard at a local pool, so I would get my mom to drop me off there, but being a typical teen girl, I wouldn’t speak to him or approach him.”

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Eventually, when they were 15, they kissed at a pool party. After that, though they saw each other at different social events, nothing else happened.