In 2016, Josephine and Quang's dads' reconnected. They both mentioned having kids around the same age. Josephine and Quang both knew they were up to no good. With the help of Josephine's dad, Josephine and Quang exchanged multiple text messages and found they had multiple things in common. They also noticed Josephine was living in Arizona while Quang was living in Texas at the time. Josephine then realized her dad had planned for Quang to text her days before she was leaving for her cousin's wedding in Texas. This is because her parents wanted Quang to take her out for dinner the night they landed in Houston, Texas. Josephine was nervous the whole plane ride and tried to convince her sister to come along, since Quang was bringing his cousin. But her sister refused. This then left Josephine, Quang, and his cousin to get dinner. ​ The next day was Josephine's cousin's wedding. Josephine and Quang were messaging each other throughout the day. Supposedly, as the day passes, Quang regrets not making plans with Josephine after the wedding because he knew she was only there for the weekend. However, Josephine felt courageous and convinced Quang to meet her outside of the reception hall to hang out and talk until the wedding ended. The night ended, and Josephine went back to Arizona. ​ Josephine and Quang continued to talk to each other. Quang hinted to Josephine that he had feelings for only her, and she did too. Josephine didn't want to rush things, nor wanted to start a long-distance relationship. So, she told him to wait until she was done with her first year at U of A to talk about their relationship status. After finals were done and Josephine finally settled home, Quang and Josephine went back and forth on a phone call about their friendship. Josephine was scared and did not want a long-distance relationship to be her first kind of relationship. Then, Quang was persistent and convinced Josephine to start a long-distance relationship.

After over a year of long-distance, Quang was getting anxious because there were going to be changes to the U.S government and his visa was on the line. During some long phone calls, Quang and Josephine decided to get civilly married. So, Quang asked her dad for his blessing. Quang and Josephine planned the civil wedding, but it happened to be when Josephine's parents were going to Vietnam for the first time in over 30 years. They continued to proceed with their plan, asked Josephine's sister and best friend to be their witnesses, and planned to FaceTime their parents during the ceremony. On August 16th, 2017, Josephine and Quang were civilly married. Even though the civil wedding was momentous to Josephine and Quang, it was not something Josephine dreamed of. She wanted the proposal, the church wedding, the reception, etc. So, Josephine and Quang decided to still do everything, but much later in life, since they were still young.

Quang and Josephine were going to California to play sand volleyball with some of their friends. They decided to stay an extra day longer than their friends. Quang and Josephine enjoyed the city, ate food, and got boba before Quang told her they were meeting up with a family friend's family at Victoria Beach. Josephine was excited since she wanted to spend more time at the beach. Once everyone was at the beach, Josephine asked their friend why they wanted to go to the beach. They responded that it was because the kids wanted to go, and it had been a long time since they went as a family. Quang and their other friend went ahead to scope out the place because the family wanted to take pictures. All of a sudden, Quang calls Josephine to come over and pose for a picture with him. Josephine poses, but Quang suddenly turns and gets on one knee to ask Josephine for her hand in marriage.