While a tired cliché, the old adage about finding love when you least expect it was on full display in Sonoma in June of 2019. Jamie and Alex were both in Sonoma attending the wedding of their friends Christine and Ryan, and though they didn't know each other when the wedding started, by the end of the night they were inseparable. After making the drive from her home in San Francisco, Jamie immediately noticed Alex and his family and hoped he was attending the same wedding. Luckily for her, he had flown in from his home on Maui that day, and was there with his family to support their longtime family friends. During the ceremony and the pre-dinner cocktail hour, Alex noticed Jamie's striking green dress from the other side of the venue, and she was relieved to see him there in his bow tie. All that was left was an introduction. Enter Jessica Solon. After Jamie mentioned seeing Alex from across the room, Jessica, who had officiated the wedding, wasted no time. She walked right up to Alex to introduce him to Jamie, who promptly said a quick hello and walked away, presumably to get some liquid courage. She returned, and the two immediately started chatting about life, discovering mutual friends from across the country, and a shared view of the world (oh, and a shared lack of dancing ability). For the rest of the evening, they were inseparable, hanging together through the after party and sitting on an infamous bench to chat for hours. The days after the wedding they met up again with friends for dinner and realized that the wedding night was far from a fluke, connecting on every topic and setting the stage for a long-distance relationship that would blossom and grow. *We would be remiss if we didn't mention that Alex's sister Lisa, and Jason Solon (Jessica's sister) had a similar experience that evening, and are now living together in Tampa, Florida after a long-distance relationship. Truly, love was in the air!

After the wedding, Alex flew back to Maui, though the two talked every day. Whether through FaceTime, text, Instagram DMs or on the phone, by talking regularly and for hours, the distance didn't feel so daunting. Jamie was the first one to decide to make the trip to visit, biting the bullet to travel to ugly Maui, where the bond continued to grow between the two. More trips were planned, the two attended a Clemson football game with Alex's parents (the hottest game of all time might I add), and Alex made his way to San Francisco to learn all about unbeatable breakfast sandwiches and Jamie's infamous "coffee walks." Jamie's family even traveled to Maui for Thanksgiving, and attended the PGA TOUR's Sentry Tournament of Champions, which Alex and his team run every January. It was a whirlwind. While the prospect of living together was something they talked about, moving to Hawaii is no small feat, so both Jamie and Alex didn't put a timetable on it. When it was right it would feel right. What neither could have guessed is that the COVID-19 Pandemic would help things feel "right" a lot faster. As the news spread of the worsening virus in March of 2020, Jamie decided she didn't want to be stuck alone in a studio apartment during times of uncertainty and lockdowns. So she hopped a flight to Maui and figured she would spend a few weeks there to wait it out. A few weeks turned into three months, and the two learned a lot about each other (mainly Alex learned that many problems can be solved with organization, coffee, sushi, and golf). It was at that point that Jamie, who luckily also got a job working with a remote company, made the decision to move to Maui. So despite the challenges posed by a pandemic, it helped turn 2020 into the most important year of Jamie and Alex's lives. Truly a silver lining.

Once Jamie moved to Maui, a proposal was just a matter of "when," not "if." Alex, a romantic at heart, wanted to make it a special surprise, though Jamie is not an easy woman to surprise. Jamie, who knew an engagement was coming eventually, was thinking that early 2021 was the likely timeframe given that Alex's tournament was coming up and the months right before are the most stressful of the year. What she didn't realize, however, is that Alex had been thinking about popping the question since that conversation on the bench more than a year earlier, and simply did not want to wait. When you know you know. It's hard to pick a bad place to get engaged on Maui. So he picked one that was both beautiful and meaningful, the point behind the 17th tee on Kapalua's Bay Course. Jamie had seriously picked golf up in 2020, and the two played countless rounds during the pandemic to stay sane. After telling Jamie to be ready to go to a local restaurant that evening, he got a text from her mid day that she had decided to go to Target and TJ Maxx after a long week of work - the first time she had decided to do this on a Friday all year. As you might imagine, Alex was thrown for a loop, stressed that his plans would be unraveled. Thankfully, Jamie isn't a flake and made it back in time to head to the "dinner and drinks" that evening. To get Jamie to the point behind the 17th hole, Alex and his coworkers concocted a fake story about needing to scout the area for the tournament, a common occurrence. While walking down to the area, Jamie hilariously critiqued the half-baked plan despite not knowing that the entire thing was fabricated. Once they reached the area, Jamie heard a camera shutter. And when she turned around, Alex was on one knee, and she, maybe for the first time in her life that wasn't a Cubs World Series, was speechless. She said "Yes!" and the two went to meet friends for a night of celebration.