Jessie and Anthony's story is an age old tale... online dating. We first met in the Fall of 2019 when both of our schedules happened to be slow. We got lucky! We rarely have slow schedules at the same time. From there, we had our first five dates in five days. Yes, you read that correctly - we first met on August 20, 2019 at Seven Grand (included on the Things To Do page) and then got together each of the next four days. After those five days, Jessie had enough and needed a break so she left the country for a one-week vacation in Japan, which led to a week of texting and Facetime at odd hours of the day. We celebrated eight months of blissful courtship - dinner, bars, plays, the zoo, all of the great things in San Diego. Then in March 2020, we took a week vacation to Spain with Jessie's parents (Barcelona and Madrid, in case you are interested). By time we got back, the world was in chaos. Travel to Spain was shut down less than a week after we arrived home. Okay, okay - the world might already have been in chaos, but we chose not to see it while on vacation. So what did we do? I mean, what could we do in a world of pandemic and lockdown? We moved in together and got two cats (Shrek and Fiona - honorary members of the wedding party). In June 2021, we moved to Sacramento for Jessie's job and moved into a cute house right outside the Fabulous Forties (a happy accident because we did not know the Fabulous Forties were a thing). For those who, like us, do not know what the Fabulous Forties are - the Fabulous Forties are a group of streets in Sacramento that go big on decorating for the holidays and have some of the nicest houses in the city. The plan is to move back to southern CA in July 2022, because why not add more fun activities to the month of the wedding. If we get to see you all there, it will be well worth it. Some of you are like "that's weird, did they forget the engagement?" Nope, we just broke it out below so that you could read even more about us.

We got engaged April 28, 2021 in Maui at the top of Haleakalā at sunset - how romantic! The story starts four weeks earlier when we decided that we would go to Hawaii. This gave Anthony 28 days to find the perfect ring without Jessie noticing. Considering it was lockdown and Anthony was working from home, it was obvious when he ran errands and did not invite Jessie. The goal was to propose on Haleakalā at sunrise on the 1st or 2nd morning there, but they only sell 20 tickets for each sunrise (which go on sale 24 hours before) and we did not win either day. From there, Anthony tried to get to Haleakalā on our third night, but it had been a long day and we might not have arrived by sunset (Anthony wanted to risk it). So, instead Anthony thought - let's go to the secret cove that he read about and I can do it there. But, Jessie was not feeling the cove and wanted dinner. In case you are wondering - yes, she made him seriously work to propose to her. The second to last day arrives, and we make plans to go wine tasting and then up to the volcano for sunset. We get dressed up nice for the wine tasting, but find out that it was sold out for the day. Well, not a total loss - at least we will be dressed nicely for the proposal. At this point, Jessie had given up on Anthony proposing during the trip (I mean, it was the second to last day) and decided to change into yoga pants to relax and be warm. Anthony tried telling her that she could wear the skirt over her leggings "for a wind breaker" to keep warm... She looked at him like a crazy man. Sunset came and Anthony said let's get up and take a photo. Jessie stood up, took the selfie and was down before he could make his move. In honesty, she didn't want to block people's view. A little after sunset, we asked someone to take our picture. During the picture, Anthony went to one knee and proposed. Jessie took the ring and put it on. To this day, Anthony is still not sure whether she actually said yes or just took the ring.