Our story begins, as so many do these days, with a simple message. To this day, neither of us remembers who sent the first message, or what was said. Probably something about nature and our mutual love of the travel? What matters is that it wasn’t long before we were talking constantly and planning our first date. At the time, Julian was a 5th year graduate student at the University of Illinois, deep in the weeds researching and writing his doctoral dissertation. Alex, on the other hand, had moved to Champaign a mere two weeks prior to begin her own graduate studies. It didn’t make sense for either of us to get into a serious relationship at that point in time. Julian was about to leave! Alex was just starting a new chapter! Why would we get invested in a new relationship right then? Well, our first date put an immediate end to that kind of thinking. It was Labor Day 2019 (we thought for about 4 years that the date was September 1st, only discover later it was actually the 2nd. But that’s a story for another time — we still celebrate our anniversary on the 1st). The plan was for Julian, who knew the town well, to show Alex around some of his favorite restaurants and watering holes in downtown Champaign. We started at Esquire, for the best wings in town (which they were unfortunately not serving that night), and then found ourselves at one bar after the next, hopping our way around downtown Champaign. The time flew and we talked about everything under the sun — interests, passions, life, philosophy, politics, values, ambitions — you name it. We were enthralled. Before we knew it, we were closing down Quality Lounge, sharing a first kiss as the result of a bet placed on the outcome of a game of darts (Alex won). Pretty soon it was time for us both to call it a night, but we’re pretty sure we set a record for one of the longest first dates at around 7 hours. The connection was undeniable and neither of us could wait to see the other again. Julian asked Alex to meet up for coffee the next day on campus, and we they got ice cream that evening at Jarling’s. The day after that we were having dinner at Julian’s favorite Mexican restaurant in town. For those of you counting, that’s four dates in the first three days of knowing each other! From that point on, we saw each other pretty much every single day. It was never “are we hanging out tonight?” and always “whose apartment are we going to?”

Fast forward four months. We had become a prominent fixture in each other’s lives, had met each other’s families and many of each other’s friends, and, as both of us are passionate travelers, we had even planned several future adventures together. Our first big trip together was going to be the Philippines, because neither of us had been to Asia before and it was fairly cheap (we were poor grad students, after all). Still, we knew a future was looming where we were not living in the same place. We began to think about how this would work once Julian finished school and moved onto his next endeavor. We got a trial run of this when Alex had to leave for a semester of field work in Fort Hood, TX. Julian helped her move down there, then came back to Illinois to begin our first stint as a long distance couple. It wasn’t easy, as anyone will tell you, but it was clear that we were both committed to making it work. That remained true, even when a global pandemic made it much more difficult for us to visit each other (and forced us to cancel our Philippines trip). Coronavirus couldn’t deter us however, and before long Alex was back in Champaign. We made up for lost time by (perhaps inadvisably) quarantining together for a couple months that summer (and even adopted a dog together lol) until Alex’s new house was ready to move into. It was smooth sailing for a time after that, until the following winter when Julian finally finished school and got a job in California. Alex helped him move but had to go back to Illinois to finish her own studies. It was after she left and Julian was on his own in California for the first time that he first began thinking about how he would propose to her. But that would have to wait. For the next year they visited each other periodically, and Alex spent a summer with Julian in Sacramento, but for the most part they continued to live 2,000 miles apart. Finally, in the winter of 2021, Alex finished her Master’s degree! Julian was there to surprise her after her defense. We celebrated in equal measure the fact that she had finished her studies, as well as the fact that we could finally begin out lives together. After spending more time apart than together for the first two and half years of our relationship, we were finally done with long distance. Alex got a job with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and moved to California to join Julian. Over the next 3 years, we moved around Northern California and explored all that wonders that the state has to offer. With several large moves and a couple of job changes, life threw a lot at us during that time, but we made the most of it all. Our little family grew to include four fur babies — two dogs and two cats — all of whom tolerate each other just fine!

Late in 2023, now both professionals making grown-up money, we decided to take their long-awaited Philippines trip off the back-burner. We began planning what would be the most important adventure of their lives to that point, because, you see, unbeknownst to Alex, Julian was making additional plans. We left for the Philippines in February of 2024, and on March 1st, on an excursion to a serene tropical waterfall on the island of Cebu, Julian asked Alex to marry him. And wouldn’t you know it, she said yes! Alex will tell you that she knew Julian was going to propose on that trip, but Julian likes to think he surprised her ;). In any case, we left the United States as boyfriend and girlfriend, and returned two weeks later as fiancés. That will have been more than two years ago by the time we get to call each other Husband and Wife. But the long engagement has been well worth it. It gave us the time to plan a beautiful wedding from another state where all of our favorite people can come celebrate with us. And really, people typically don’t get to use “fiancé” for very long, so we figured we’d take advantage of it! Now that we are reaching the culmination of the first part of our story, we want to express our eternal gratitude to all of the people in our lives who have made life so wonderful for us over the years. Thank you for your love, your support, and most of all, for making the journey to come celebrate with us. It is only fitting that you will be there to help us usher in the next part of our story on the 20th of June, 2026 Thank you for reading our story and, more importantly, for being a part of it. We love you all.