We first met at our cousins' wedding in the fall of 2012 in Sacramento. We hit it off, phone numbers were exchanged, but after that night we didn't think much of it and went on with our lives. A few months later, back in San Francisco, I by chance started a new job at the same company Blake worked at. I didn't make the connection until a couple months into the job when Blake, egged on by his friends, approached me at a work happy hour and re-introduced himself. Embarrassed that I hadn't recognized him and had ignored his texts months prior, I proceeded to avoid him around the office for several months — until another work event came around. This time, I was the one that approached him. That's when we really clicked, our childish games came to end, and we went on to have our first proper date that is now leading to a marriage.

In February 2018 Blake planned a surprise trip to celebrate my birthday. He tried to throw me off on the destination with talks of Palm Springs and San Diego, and held strong until the night before when he accidentally slipped that we were going to Hawaii. We arrived in Maui with our good friends Johnny and Heather. The second day into the trip we headed out from the resort for very secretive dinner plans. Blake spent the 30-minute drive nervously talking to our Uber driver nonstop, while Johnny and Heather didn't speak a single word. I thought something was up, but didn't think much of it. We arrived at Mama's Fish House and went for a walk down the beach before our reservation. Coming to a secluded area at sunset, Blake got down on one knee. After saying "Yes!", we turned around to find a cheering crowd on the cliff above our no-so-secluded spot. It was perfect, and we were engaged.