We met on the first day of our first class of graduate school. Though there was interest from the jump, it wasn't until a second time through the dating app cycle that we actually gave it a shot (thank god!) After many hours on the phone and an initial plan to grab a cup of coffee for our first date, we shifted our plans to instead get Anni's (now our) cat Jan. If you know anything about us (or Jan), you know that this was a pretty special way to start our story.

Getting to know each other has been like getting reacquainted with someone already familiar to you. We fell in love quickly, but more than that genuinely became best friends. Anni: I think it was love at first sight. Hearing Jude give their introduction in our first class gave me pause--I remember being caught off guard because I got this sense of familiarity as they spoke, and a feeling of overwhelming calm. Looking back I think I knew then that our paths were meant to cross. When we started spending time together, I quickly became, and continue to be, amazed by Jude's brain and knowledge, their approach to everything and everyone with gentleness and grace, and their incredible wit. Falling in love with Jude was one of the most effortless things I've ever done. Jude: What solidified it was watching the way Anni cared for her senior dog Ruby. You have to understand, Ruby was ancient, could do very little, and was confused most of the time. Seeing the respect and care that Anni had for her epitomized patience and gentleness, and helped me see that she was just as obsessed with her pets as my family always was--two things critical to me in a partner. On a larger scale, Anni is the most enthusiastically kind person that I've ever known, and the way she interacts with the world is impossible not to love.

In some very tumultuous years of our lives, the relationship we’ve built together has been both a haven and a beacon, something to ground us and to push us forward. We've built a home filled with pets, plants, and warmth. Since getting Jan, we've gotten three more little ladies: Candi, Brad, and Cannoli. We've also grown a semi-impressive garden. One of the loveliest things to happen is the community we've found and been welcomed into. Both of us feel incredibly lucky to be part of each other's families, and, we've built the most wonderful community of friends who've become family. Through all of this, our partnership has become and remains solid, revolving around our seeing each other as love, friend, and partner.

The getting married of it all has always felt like a given, and we’ve talked about it from the early days of our relationship. But this year, it became a much more real conversation, and I (Jude) had to gear myself up for some good old fashioned covert operations. From the months of May-September 2024, I worked with our friends and family to pull off an engagement night that would hopefully convey just how important Anni is to me. Under the false pretense of getting dinner with our friends, I drove Anni to the waterfall in Forest Park where we used to meet to walk to class together, and asked her if we could stop on the way to be sentimental. We got to the waterfall, and as I was getting down on one knee, Anni finally started to suspect something, and asked "are you about to propose?" to which I responded "if you'll let me." After that, it's a blur! After the "yes," we took photos in the park, then went back to our house where some of our favorite people were waiting to celebrate. From there, the wedding planning began!