If I know what love is it is because of you.

Back in the Spring of 2015, Graham and I were invited to a mutual friends birthday party. Little did we know, this would be the start of it all. I (Rachael) had a long day at work and decided I was not going to partake in the birthday festivities that evening. I even went to dinner with my roommate at the time, and planned on just going home afterward. However, something was telling me to go. I said I would, so after dinner I went home, freshened up and made my way out. Graham was invited our friends birthday by another mutual friend. I showed up and told myself I’d stay for a little to keep my word and I found myself in a group of friends after wandering around a bit. Graham was in this group of friends. He was standing across from me and in true Rachael fashion, I said something extremely sarcastic and was met with a matter of fact, honest, kind response. Graham and I got to talking within our group of friends and learned that we both liked rock climbing, hiking and being outdoors in general. We talked about getting together sometime for a hike and then we went our separate ways to socialize with other friends. At the end of the night as we were all leaving, Graham and I found each other to say goodbye and he asked for my number to get in touch about a hike sometime. I saved him in my phone as “Graham Cracker”. That was the first step in building the foundation of our friendship.

As told by Rachael A very good client of mine had invited me to a “comedy, burlesque, magic show”. I thought to invite my new friend, Graham. He agreed and met me at my apartment the following weekend to join me. Once we arrived at our destination, I introduced Graham (as my friend) to my client. Graham and I then sat down at the bar to grab a drink before the show. The bartender took our order and before I knew it, Graham was doing magic tricks with the bartender. “Of course”, I thought. “Why wouldn’t Graham be doing magic at the bar before a comedy, burlesque, magic show”? (This is where I learned that he had been into magic since he was a kid and was part of the junior magicians program at the Magic Castle!) The show was terrible. I mean really bad. The music was great though! Then, halfway through the show, Graham halfway put his arm around me. I remember thinking, “what the heck??” A few moments later he committed and put his arm all the way around me. Still, I wasn’t sure what was happening because surely he was aware that I had invited him as my friend. After a couple minutes, I wasn’t mad at what was happening. In fact, I was feeling pretty happy about it. Fast forward to the show ending (thank goodness). We decided to go to dinner and while we were sitting at the table laughing and talking, I remember thinking to myself how it felt like we had already been married for 40 years and then I asked myself, "did this turn into a date?" After dinner we went back to my house to watch a funny movie. We were hanging out on the couch and I proceeded to do a headstand on said couch, as you do; and then I fell over. That's when Graham kissed me. In that very moment I thought to myself, “you either have to end this right now, or this is who you are going to marry”. I’ve never been so happy about a misunderstanding. That whole time, Graham thought I had asked him out on a date! As it turned out, that whole spectacle really was our first date.

We arrived at Crystal Cove beach and took our shoes off so we could walk down by the water. We headed left and came up to an area of rocks and I said, “should we just hang out on one of these?”. The view was beautiful and the waves were dancing back and forth in front of us. I was looking around, appreciating the view when Graham turned me to him. He kissed me and we hugged and he quickly said as he went down to one knee, “I can’t wait for everyone else to get here. Will you marry me?” My ring is rose gold, moonstone, opal, pearl and diamonds. Graham found the pearl in Hawaii when he was 10 years old and told his mom he would one day give it to his wife. She’s held on to the pearl ever since. The rest is history.