Cassandra and Arjun met as coworkers in 2015 when both started working at a wine cafe in Phoenix. They remained friends for 2 1/2 years, the last 6 months of which Cassandra spent crushing on Arjun to his absolute obliviousness. (If you know him, this will not shock you). Then, on February 15th, 2017, Cassandra joked about going to see the movie A Dog’s Purpose in order to have a good cry, and Arjun jokingly offered to catch her tears in a dog bowl if she needed. After the movie, he at long last expressed his affections, which she reciprocated, albeit with a hint of humorous exasperation. He has been foolishly grinning since that day, and they have been best friends ever since.

Cassandra is a bit of a sleuth, so Arjun held on to the ring through almost a year of trips / potential proposal opportunities to throw her off the trail. She would think: will he propose during our fall trip to Disneyland, with the night aglow with fireworks? Psych. Will it be during our winter trip to New York City, with the falling snow kissing our skin? Yeah right. Then on February 2, 2023, he asked if she wanted to visit Coronado Beach that morning. She thought, my goodness. The first place we ever visited after moving to California 6 years prior: could this be it? HA, you thought. On the drive home, Arjun asked her to take the scenic route through Temecula, where he asked if she wanted to stop for a wine tasting at a “random” vineyard. Little did she know he had planned for the vineyard owner to play a three song playlist consisting of Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour,” John Mayer’s “Love Who You Love,” and Taylor Swift’s “It’s Nice To Have A Friend,” a playlist that started softly floating through the speakers as the couple rang the doorbell, walked through the chateau doors, and made their way to the veranda, where two oak wine barrels with bouquets resting on them framed the vineyard just “perfectly.” Arjun was so overjoyed at proposing, that he knelt there for some moments, grinning foolishly, forgetting to actually place the ring on her finger. After the proposal, Cassandra thought they were leaving, until Arjun surprised her with a bottle of champagne and room keys for a stay at the chateau that night. They awoke the next morning to, and you cannot make this up, scores of multicolored hot air balloons filling the sky above the vineyard. You could see the sense: it was, in fact, all UP from there, the beginning of an adventure of a lifetime.