Cabaret for Two: Love + Marriage (Emily and Dylan's Story)

Written by Emily Margevich, OperaDelaware Company Artist

Emily and Dylan snuggled up at a concert early in their relationship.

We met as students at the same music school, The Academy of Vocal Arts, in Philadelphia, September of 2022.

We liked each other as people immediately, and we always felt like we knew each other already. Whenever we spoke, it seemed like nothing else was going on anywhere around us. We became good friends in spring of 2023 doing Don Giovanni together at AVA, and we always were being goofy together and having fun.

We started writing to each other for weeks during the summer of 2023 while at different summer programs, and thus we got to really know each other. No one confessed any love, but we each separately had a feeling we’d be together soon, and forever.

We started dating in September of 2023 when the AVA school year started its season, as soon as we were back to Philly from the summer of writing.

Emily and Dylan replicating their earlier photo a year later at the same concert.

We loved being in the same place every day together through our studies. We were never apart, and we had so much fun sharing our AVA days together that entire school year season.

The surprise was successful when Dylan proposed on May 17, 2024 after my graduation recital by singing the song “You and I” from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis.

Since we’re both performers, we didn’t plan a wedding date for a while because we never knew where we’d be and for how long.

Truly helped by the fact that I have a full time job with OperaDelaware, a wedding date was able to be made and kept! One wedding will be in Illinois on April 12, and one wedding will be in Pennsylvania on June 28 of 2026.

Would you believe that we both have a lot of family in nearby small towns in the Midwest? Would you believe that Dylan’s cousin’s wife’s aunt was my grade school band teacher?! It’s true!! We have 12 year old cousins who became friends this year going to the same school, but we all only just found out that they’ll both be junior bridesmaids in our wedding party! Small world!!

All of the songs we’ve chosen for the Love and Marriage cabaret really encapsulate how we feel about each other. We’ll be reading poetry and speaking about our love during the concert. The song “Widmung”, for me, is exactly all that I feel for Dylan.

What Yuri wrote about putting the other person in your relationship first is so perfectly said and just exactly how we feel, too. The four of us have had such an endearing and fun time realizing that our love stories are very similar!

A friend asked us once what has been the most surprising part of dating each other, and we said that we were maybe not surprised but in awe of the fact that we never had to get used to each other; we felt very close and completely comfortable about everything immediately. Loving each other felt like an extension of ourselves had been connected and found. Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. To feel that you are on the true path of your life in finding your soul mate is the most grounded, most powerful perspective the universe has to offer.