Jenna and Landen graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in March. With over 300 mutual friends it was a wonder they went through most of college not knowing each other. It wasn't until march of their 3rd year when they were both asked to emcee an event called Night at The Oscars. After briefly meeting, Jenna texted Landen with the idea to pass out free donuts to the 1,000 audience members. Landen loved the idea and they spent the next day driving all over San Luis Obispo together convincing donut shops to give them 1,000 free donuts. After many negotiations and lots of “your crazy”’s, SloDoCo agreed to have all the donuts ready the next day. After a fun and successful evening, they exchanged photos for Instagram and went their separate ways. Then, Landen did something very out of character. He texted Jenna suggesting they hang out sometime, despite barely knowing her. From there the relentless texting began. Jenna and Landen spent all of spring break sending millions of essay long text messages. They seemed to connect on everything, from growing up as PK’s (pastor’s kids), to their love of cheese boards. They began to dream up exciting things they could do once they were together. Landen suggested making a bucket list of these things and Jenna, being the person she is, promptly made a spread sheet to outline and keep track of all the activities. She even coded in a random generator button to select activities so that she would not ever have to confront the issue of having to make a decision on which activity to do. Anxious to see each other after two weeks apart, they decided to get dinner. Landen let Jenna choose where to go. She strategically chose Denny's because she knew they could stay as long as they wanted at the 24 hour chain. It's safe to say their 5 hour long dinner at Denny's was a "grand-slam” ***(Landen wanted to note his objection to the use of pun in the previous sentence).
With busy schedules, Landen and Jenna had to get creative on ways to spend time together. Jenna oddly liked to walk 2 miles to school every morning to "get her steps in”. Even though Landen had a parking pass, he often joined Jenna on these long walks. They would make at least 3 trips to In N Out a week at ungodly hours to get fries and milkshakes. Over the past year Jenna and Landen have lived in San Francisco for 3 months for summer internships, traveled to Italy, Iceland, London, and Paris together and have shared countless adventures, usually with a Diet Coke in one of their hands. This summer after their honeymoon in Maui, Jenna and Landen will be moving up to the bay area to start their married-life and careers together. Jenna will be a UX Product Manager at Workday and Landen will be working at Cisco as a part of their Leaders in Finance and Technology program.
It was an average Tuesday night when Jenna had finished school She texted Landen that she was to do some grocery shopping and then go study at home. Landen asked if he could join. While taking her sweet time wandering down every aisle of the store, Landen started to send impatient texts asking when she would get home. Jenna didn’t think anything of it. She finally went home. Landen knocked on the door with his camera out. “Why are you filming me?!” she wined. “I need you to go upstairs, pack your bags for five days with your cutest and warmest clothes,” he said. After arguing for a couple minutes in the doorway debating whether or not Landen was “punking” her, they went upstairs to pack. Being the workaholic she is, Jenna stressed about her senior project, but Landen made sure to go to her professor’s office's to make sure she could miss class and get extensions on her assignments. Landen blindfolded Jenna, took away her glasses, and reclined her seat in the car for 5 hours to a “secret location” (aka his sister, Kassidy’s house). It probably looked like a hostage situation when Landen guided Jenna through the gas station to go to the bathroom. After sleeping for 2 hours, Landen woke Jenna up at 5 am and threw her back in the car blindfolded. He proceeded to drive to LAX, take off her blindfold, and ask, “where do you think we’re going?” “Chicago? New York?” she questioned. “We’re going to Paris! Grab your bags. We're running late,” Landen said quickly, fearful of missing the flight. WHAT!!! Jenna had been expecting a trip to the mountains AT THE MOST! Fast forward through the 121 hour flight. Jenna and Landen got to Paris and explored, while seeing sites and eating crepes. Around sunset, Landen brought Jenna to the Eiffel Tower, and read her a sweet note. He talked about the things he loves about her and how he believed in an incredible future they could have. He then got down on one knee and proposed! Of course she said “YES!”.