We request the honor of your presence at an evening of festivities and merriment. Details and invitation to follow.

The first rule of Architecture Club...make the coffee. Like many love stories ours began with fireworks...well at least a tiny sparkling robot Ian bought and sent toddling over to Mercedes because he didn't know how to talk to her. From there, we learned to become inseparable leaning on each other through the coffee-induced hallucinations, long nights, and trials of Architecture school.

Finally, on December 11, 2015, Mercedes sent Ian a text message that essentially asked "are we doing this or what?" We never announced our relationship to family and friends. We kept that information to ourselves and let everyone else decide what they wanted to call it. The next two years could be described as sleeping under studio desks, making the communal pots of coffee, and walks around the building after hard studio critiques. Eventually, graduation loomed and we decided we were going to do what was best for each of us personally, and if it worked out...then it was meant to be.

This tale is largely concerned with graduate school, and from it a reader may discover much of our character while being distant. Steadfast in our love, we decided to try out long distance as we went to different grad schools, in different states, sometimes on different continents. With the avid use of skype, hand-written letters, and an endless text/meme conversation we saw it to the end of our 21-month long-distance adventure stronger and happier.

Two weeks after Mercedes presented her graduate thesis, and after nearly two years long-distance, we drove a half empty moving truck from St. Louis to our new home in Chicago. We slept on the floor that night. In true Ian and Mercedes fashion, we had an excel spreadsheet to declare who was bringing what to this new home. When we got here, the only thing we really owned were books and clothes. In 2020, we spent nine months mainly inside of a 650 square feet.

In 2021, we bought a house and started a business together. We're a soon-to-be husband and wife team striving to create a new model of ethical property managership, one phone call and renovation at a time. Maybe one day it'll be an inspiring story. But right now, it's a lot of sweat equity and relationship building. We appreciate all of our friends and family who have encouraged us. Thank you in advance for your guidance and love throughout our lifetime of marriage and whatever other crazy things we decide to pick up along the way.