The date: Sunday, February 2013. The location: the exquisite Orleans Hotel, Las Vegas. The soundtrack: whichever 2010s Drake song was topping the charts at the time. Within moments of meeting, Mari was dancing on Derek’s shoulders. We weren’t complete strangers; our chance first encounter was thanks to mutual friends who weren’t ready to leave Vegas just yet. More accurately, Mari wasn’t ready to leave Vegas just yet. We didn’t quite recognize it at the time, but our instant chemistry was unmistakable, and would inevitably reveal itself much further down the line. After a fun afternoon, we said our friendly farewells, exchanged information and went our separate ways. Intrigued, Derek was quick to leave his phone number in Mari's publicly-accessible Instagram comments. Pre-DM’s, 2013 was the peak of social media. We remained friendly on instagram, and although we shared loosely connected social circles back in LA, we only ran into each other a couple of times over the next almost-ten years. Fast forward to 2020 and the algorithms were algorithming. Suddenly we were back on each other’s radars, and before we knew it, we were talking almost everyday. Their initial attraction was reignited and intensifying. Still, it wasn’t until Hinge, the app meant be deleted, recommended us as “highly compatible” that we truly reconnected. Mari clocked but ignored the suggestion. Derek, on the other hand, pounced at the opportunity. Derek decided to woo Mari in a foolproof romantic strategy of tacos and Christmas lights at his beachfront apartment. Jackpot. Mari was all in. The rest is history…

Last Labor Day, we took a little holiday down to Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico to celebrate the long weekend. After we settled into our hotel, Derek excitedly suggested we cancel dinner plans and kick off the trip with a mezcal tasting. According to him, we’d been called up from an impossible waitlist and confirmed for the “exclusive experience” at the last minute. How lucky! We drove (in his sick & extremely capable 4Runner) to the middle of nowhere and parked at the bottom of a steep though otherwise unassuming hill. The tasting, he said, was in a speakeasy at the top. As we ascended the stairs, winded and oblivious, I mentioned that I could hear one of our songs playing in the distance. An obscure choice for a Baja mezcal bar in retrospect—but I remained unfazed. A few more steps and I caught a glimpse of what looked like white decorations, “it’s cute here” I thought, nonchalantly. We reached the last step and that’s when what was happening finally hit me. It became immediately clear that we were the only two planned to be there that night. “You are like Christmas everyday to me,” Derek said, “so I brought you here to Casita Natal.” Then, in our private casita, with breathtaking views of the valley and a lavish table spread (including a little bottle of mezcal so that he wasn’t a complete liar), Derek got on one knee and asked me to marry him. The next several hours were a tearful, and exuberant, blur - full of champagne and happy phone calls to our families and loved ones. The evening was absolutely perfect and we can’t wait to share another perfect night with you, all of our most favorite people. See you in Indio!