The Moncadas

Darienne (Flattery) & Nick Moncada ‘12

Nick and I met in freshman year through mutual friends and de - veloped a strong friendship. During the summer before our senior year, I was working on Cape Cod at the same time that Nick and his family were spending their annual two-week vacation in a nearby town. Nick asked me to come spend the day with them, and looking back, that was when our friendship started to change for both of us. When we returned to Eastern for our senior year, we began to hang out daily and our friendship slowly turned into a relationship.

We graduated in 2012 and began the next steps of our lives together as we started our careers — Nick was at a physical therapy clinic and I was in a social work agency. After a year, we both decided to go back to school. Nick went back to get his degree as a physical therapy assistant, and I went back to get my master’s degree in social work. We were very busy, and the support we gave each other was truly the only thing that kept us going. Nick now works as a physical therapy assistant for Orthopedic Associates of Hartford, and I am a clinician for The Village for Families and Children’s Extended Day Treatment program.

In August 2016, Nick proposed on the beach that I visited him at that summer going into senior year! We were married on Nov. 11, 2017, and recently purchased our first home in Middletown. We are both thankful for our experience at Eastern, the opportunities we were given, the lifelong friends we made and the memories we have. Eastern will always have a special place in our hearts.