Marriage Town, USA Population: Us

Patrick and Jasmine first met in college at Seattle Pacific University as a result of their friend groups overlapping. As college continued on, their friend groups grew closer, and they grew closer as well. One of Jasmine's early memories of Patrick was when she and some friends were visiting Patrick's roommate and having a loud, laughter-filled time late into the night. He came out of his room with a grumpy look on his face and asked them to be quiet. Jasmine remembers thinking that Patrick was super cute despite his grumpiness (and that was probably the first time ever, and last, that Jasmine was more of a night owl than Patrick). One of Patrick's early memories of Jasmine was in the later years of college, when their friend groups really began to collide. During one of SPU's Christmas events called "Tradition", Patrick met up with some mutual friends in the outdoor green space and recognized a familiar face, but not yet too familiar. He noticed how comfortable she was entering in the conversation and her sense of humor was exactly his type. Goofy, lighthearted, and unconcerned with being a little bit silly. Her playfulness and sense of humor are still some of Patrick's favorite things about Jasmine. Soon Patrick and Jasmine were doing all sorts of things together: mini golfing, antiquing around Seattle, watching fireworks on New Years Eve, watching bad movies, and attending Halloween parties. Patrick and Jasmine's story involves a lot of time where they were not in the same state, but they were always on each others' minds. First, it was Seattle and Portland when Jasmine moved back home after college, and then it was Portland and New York, where Patrick lived for five years. But despite the distance there were years of calling, texting, video chats, deep talks, and taking any opportunity they could to see each other. After years of this, and each one thinking maybe the other was "the one that got away," the frequency of video calls increased even more during lockdown. In autumn of 2020, Patrick came out to visit the west coast, and he and Jasmine realized they couldn't imagine a life without each other, and decided they'd make it official.

After a few months of back-and-forth with the jeweler to make the ring, and a few days of wildly varying weather, Patrick asked Jasmine to be his wife on April 5th, 2022. The evening started off with Jasmine coming home from work to see Patrick smiling and greeting her with a "Surprise!!" with his hands covered in breadcrumbs, making her favorite foods reminiscent of their time in New York, and playing some of her favorite music. With a picnic packed and the sun still out, they headed to a small, flowering clearing at Luscher Farm where they'd had a lovely picnic the spring before. As luck would have it, on the way there it began to drizzle and Patrick thought that postponing the proposal due to weather was going to be all for naught, but amazingly the rain stopped. Jasmine was not completely surprised that Patrick was planning to propose, but he still caught her off guard and made her cry with the heartfelt words he wrote in a little card he handed her, followed by more heartfelt words said out loud. While he got down on one knee, she said yes before he could even open up the ring box.