Photos courtesy Afrida Chowdhury and Andrew Jang
Gilbert O’Neil and Uyen Le, who met on a dating app and enjoyed a whirlwind romance over the last year, officially became an engaged couple earlier this month on the rocky hilltop of Dorchester’s Savin Hill Park— a special place for both of them from their childhood to present day.
O’Neil, a 34-year-old software engineer with family roots in Savin Hill, arranged the “surprise” nighttime proposal to Le, 33, on Jan. 3 with the help of a few friends who set the mood with holiday lights and candles strung along the park’s peak overlooking Dorchester Bay and the Boston skyline.
O’Neil dropped to one knee and made his loving pitch. Le, who already knew something was up, eagerly accepted.
But let’s go back to the beginning.
It was Thanksgiving break in November 2024 when O’Neil opened up the dating app Hinge and spotted a young woman he thought was beautiful, but well beyond his reach.
“I saw her pictures, and honestly, she looked out of my league,” laughed O’Neil. “Then I saw her last two pictures. In all the other pictures, she was all done up; in this one, she was in the rain and holding the bike above her head, or maybe just posing next to it.”
“I was like, ‘Okay, wow, maybe we have like this outdoorsy thing in common…So, I gathered up my courage.”
Le, who grew up on Dorchester’s Sudan Street, was “bored on Thanksgiving break” when O’Neil showed up in her match sack.
“I thought he had god-awful photos,” she said. “They were just really unflattering, but he has really kind eyes.”
They met up in downtown Boston for their first date at Yvonne’s.
“Both of us brought our own Kindles. Just in case it didn’t go anywhere, I think both of us were prepared to read our Kindles on the train home,” Le recalls.
But the books could wait; a love story was being written right before their very eyes.
“We talked for two hours,” said Le.
“We couldn’t find a seat. I remember that because I hate standing. It was so crowded in there,” added O’Neil. “We stood, and I was healing from a broken leg, and I hadn’t told her about it. I just kept it quiet, and I actually didn’t even notice it at all.”
Turning to his new fiancée, O’Neil gushed: “I was just so happy to be talking to you. I felt like we had an instant connection.”
The couple quickly learned they had a lot in common. Le, like O’Neil, is a software engineer who loves to read, bike, and camp. Better yet, they both had ties to Dorchester. O’Neil spent his childhood in Norton, but his parents grew up on Romsey Street, just one street over from where their future daughter-in-law now lives.
For holidays, O’Neil would come to the city to see family and, during his trips, would frequent Savin Hill Park. Later, he learned that Le spent much of her childhood running around the same rocky ledges atop Savin Hill and other nearby spots.
“I’m pretty sure we played together on Malibu Beach or Castle Island,” said Le.
The couple dated throughout last December and became official by January 2025.
“She was going on a trip to Cuba, and she was about to leave for a week, and then that’s when we had the discussion to define the relationship,” said O’Neil. “A couple of months in, we knew that we loved each other.”
He added: “I felt like I loved her – I can’t remember when – it was early on, but I was worried it was too early. So, I just started saying that I love things about her first. So I’d be like, ‘Oh, I love how you make this soup,’ just random stuff like, ‘I love how you come with me to play volleyball,’ and ‘I love your eyes.’ I never say that I love anything, so she was probably noticing.”
When they finally dropped the “L-word,” it didn’t take them much longer to decide they wanted to spend forever together. The two quickly started talking about a future, and with Le being Vietnamese, knew both families had to be involved.
“I wanted to ask her dad for her hand in marriage,” said O’Neil. “She’s Viet and her parents are traditional; they grew up in Vietnam. I was kind of trying to float the idea of what’s supposed to happen. I always thought I was going to ask her dad, and then she told me, ‘Hey, actually, my dad is very traditional, and he wants your parents to ask him and my mom.’”
Le explains that, “In Vietnamese culture, when two people get together, it’s not two individuals, it’s two whole families.”
So, that’s exactly what they did. Last month, the couple gathered their families together and received their blessings. O’Neil immediately started brainstorming how to propose and decided Savin Hill Park would be the perfect place to pop the question.
But it was wintertime, and the park was dark and coated in a light snowfall.
His solution: Christmas lights.
“I had a 10-page Google Docs on the set of instructions,” said O’Neil, who, with the help of friends and family, turned the hilltop into a winter wonderland.
“Which is really out of character for him because he’s not a typical planner,” Le quickly added. ”I was so shocked. I didn’t believe in this document until I saw a physical copy of it.”
But, hey, love makes you do crazy things.
“I knew it was happening that day,” said Ye, who was invited out to dinner by her friends with no specific time or location. “So that morning, I conveniently went and got a blowout, which I’ve never done. I left him alone in the morning because I had a hunch.”
Her gut instincts were right, and come dinnertime on Saturday, Jan. 3, Le made the short trip from Sudan Street to Savin Hill Park, where she followed a pathway lit by battery-powered candles. Under a makeshift canopy of string lights, she saw a nervous O’Neil aglow under the first full moon of the new year.
After an embrace, they celebrated with photos, some drinks, food from Pantry Pizza, and karaoke.
Then they quickly got to planning and have already scheduled their wedding for this fall.
“I guess when you know, you know,” said Le, looking into O’Neil’s eyes. “It seems fast, but I feel really ready. This is the only person I would do all these chaotic things with.”
