Carly and Bradley first met in high school when Carly was a freshman and Bradley was a sophomore. There was something there, enough for a few hangouts and maybe a kiss or two, but the timing wasn't right, and both of them knew it. So they went their separate ways...temporarily.

Fast forward two years later. Carly and her friends were having a very important conversation: who was going to take them to the homecoming dance. Recently glowed-up Bradley happened to walk by at exactly the right moment. Carly looked up and immediately said, "I'm going to make Bradley take me. He got really hot." What followed was a coordinated effort that Bradley may or may not have realized was happening. Carly started showing up to school early, purely to talk to him, walked a completely illogical route to class because it passed his locker, and waited an agonizing amount of time to respond to his texts. There were more hangouts, a few actual dinner-and-a-movie dates, and enough excuses to spend time together that the pattern became hard to ignore. Eventually, Bradley asked her to homecoming. He thought it was his idea...lol.

During his senior year, Bradley's entire plan was to cruise, go to college single, and snag just enough female attention to not be too bored throughout the remainder of high school. Carly was *hot* on his radar and during the times they chatted before school, he grew to learn how cute, funny, and "different" (but in best possible way) she is. He figured she'd be a great, low-stakes homecoming date, so he asked her to the dance fully unaware that he was the target of a multiperson psy-op. It was about a month later when he found out that this was all planned. Looking back, he loves how the whole thing was just so Carly - she's a smart, scheming little girl who has always found a way to manifest exactly what she wants. He just feels incredibly lucky that what she wanted was him.

While Bradley was at the University of Boulder in Colorado, Carly finished up her senior year of high school and then attended the University of Maryland. For anyone keeping track, that's five years and roughly 1,700 miles between them. They made it work though! Five years of phone calls that probably should have ended an hour earlier. Weekend trips planned around class schedules and whatever was left in college students' bank accounts. A lot of teary-eyed ‘I'll miss you’s at airports. It wasn't glamorous, and it wasn't easy, but they kept choosing it and choosing each other, semester after semester, year after year.

COVID did a lot of things nobody asked for. One silver lining: it brought Bradley back to Maryland, and for the first time in five years, they were finally in the same state. When the world reopened, they moved to DC. What followed was weekends spent climbing, eating their way through the city's restaurants, and building a life with some of their now closest friends. Even though they did not live together yet, after five years of airports and phone screens, just being in the same city was more than enough.

After a few years in DC, they decided the next logical step was to move 2,800 miles west. So they packed up, headed to San Francisco, and finally became roommates. They spend their weekends in SF climbing, cycling, and running through the kind of scenery that makes you feel smug about where you live. They've eaten their way through the city's restaurants and bakeries, though these days they've added a new tradition to the mix: hosting an Asian dinner club, which is exactly as good as it sounds. There are playful park days, hikes that justify the bakery visits, and their pug Pagu, who requires significant daily attention and absolutely knows it. The best part about SF is simple: they get to see each other every single day.

There was really only one place to do it. When Bradley asked Carly to go to the homecoming dance, he didn't realize that 10 years later he would be asking her to be his wife at the same spot. What followed was a masterclass in logistics. Bradley hopped on a redeye so he could keep texting Carly during the day like nothing was happening. He left his iPad behind in San Francisco, recasted his location to it, and went completely off the grid without raising a single red flag. He handcrafted every piece of the proposal décor himself, because he knew exactly what perfect looked like for her. Carly said yes. Immediately, resoundingly, without hesitation. The ring was stunning. The planning was meticulous. The decade it took to get here? Worth every second.