Danielle first met Alessio in her freshman year of college at Azusa Pacific University after her 4 hour night class in classic college style, “sweatpants, hair tied, chillin’ with no make-up on”. When walking back to the dorms, to her surprise, Alessio was there. (guitar in hand of course). They hit it off immediately and ended the night with some homemade grilled cheese, but it wasn’t until months later at her dorm’s event that things began to unfold.

After her dorm’s GYRAD (Get Your Roommate A Date), the late night texts and calls began & the giddiness from many dates ensued. When Danielle came back to APU from her hometown after spring break, Alessio immediately visited APU when she came back. He brought his guitar of course and coyly asked for some pretty scenery on campus. After watching her favorite movie, “A Walk to Remember”, he started playing a song he wrote called ‘Funky Hearts’ (stemmed from his typo heart he inserted in her phone which she called a funky heart). After the song, Alessio asked Danielle to be his girlfriend and 8 years later, God had greater things planned for them.

On Saturday morning, December 15, 2018, Danielle had just finished a busy 12.5 hour night shift when her family and her doggies showed up at her work to take her hiking. Now, on any other day, she would have loved that idea, but the thought of her bed after work sounded too good to pass up, so she tried to shut them down. Her family insisted and then her sister got in her car and drove up to her favorite spot— Serra Cross in Ventura. Even at the destination, Danielle was putting up a fight saying she did not want to go hiking to which her dad got the worst of it, whoops! Panicked, her sister ran all the way up and grabbed Alessio from the top to her surprise. Mind you, she thought Alessio wasn’t coming to Oxnard until night. She finally agreed to the hike and when she got there, she was even more surprised that her whole family and church family were there! At the cross, Alessio laid out a chest full of pictures of wonderful memories. He got down on on knee and through tears, she excitedly said, “yes!”