James and Angelica met in 2017, shortly after James moved to San Francisco after spending most of his twenties in the quiet suburbs around Stanford. He was finally getting a dose of city life. Angelica happened to be living in SF, a few years out from her time at Cal, and figuring out whether graduate school was in her future. In a way, their perspectives were polar opposites. James was finally finishing school just as Angelica was thinking about starting more. Their first date was at Coin-Op, a then-new spot in SF that mixed arcade games, drinks, and just enough chaos to break the ice. James remembers noticing a really pretty girl with blonde hair. Angelica remembers noticing someone trying very hard to look cool, complete with a popped jacket collar and all. Thankfully, Angelica didn’t shoot James down right away, and they ended up having a great night together. To this day, Angelica still maintains that she beat James at Street Fighter, though this remains contested. What followed was a relationship built across many chapters and more than a few zip codes. James moved from biotech to start clinical training in Boston, then back to the Bay for fellowship, venture capital, and eventually a return to biotech. Angelica took a steadier but equally dynamic path in corporate real estate and occupancy planning, working with some of the largest tech companies in Silicon Valley. For years, they assumed there would be a moment when life felt stable enough for marriage. Eventually, they realized that the only constant is that everything keeps changing, and that marriage is less about things slowing down and more about having the right person beside you while everything changes. So after doing the appropriate amount of research on the right ring, James proposed with the help of Forest, their then three-year-old golden retriever, who arrived right on cue with a ring tied to her collar. Angelica said yes immediately, marking the beginning of their next chapter, one they’re so excited to celebrate with all of you.