Our story from 2017 to now, before we proceed to forever.

It all began in the spring of 2017 at Temple University in Philadelphia. We met while taking a seminar course to prepare us for Owl Team, Temple's group of orientation leaders. That summer, as we led new student orientation groups and had plenty of fun times as friends, Jack started to develop a bit of a crush. (Okay… a huge crush).

Jack eventually confessed his feelings to Josh (so brave!), but Josh was not quite ready for a relationship and gently declined (so tragic!). Then, more than two years after initially meeting, we finally (and PASSIONATELY!!!) kissed on the dance floor at Tavern on Camac while celebrating Jack's 21st birthday. But with Josh about to graduate and only a few short months away from moving to another city, we dated ‘casually’ that summer (or at least that’s what we told ourselves). As it turned out, we are just both so irresistibly handsome, charming, and hilarious (and modest too!) that it didn't take long to fall head over heels for each other. By the end of the summer of 2019, we were officially long-distance boyfriends as Josh began grad school in Pittsburgh.

Long-distance, that is, except for every other weekend when Jack made the five-hour drive from Philly to Pittsburgh. (And don't let Jack fool you: he did not make all those trips solely for Noodlehead and Millie's Ice Cream... though they were certainly perks). Then came March 2020. When COVID shut everything down, surprise surprise, Jack was in Pittsburgh. And so we soft-launched living together for the first time (along with Josh's very accommodating housemates). Fortunately, we managed to survive that trial with our relationship intact, and our hair only slightly damaged from the bad bleach blonde box dye we subjected it to in quarantine.

After Josh’s graduation in 2021, we moved back to Philadelphia along with our cat Rain, who we'd found rolling in the leaves in the cruel streets of Pittsburgh. Not long after the move, we took in our Prozac princess Honey, completing our little family of four in Queen Village. After years of dodging engagement questions and suspicions from family and friends, we finally proposed to each other during a sneaky "Valentine's Day" trip to the Finger Lakes in 2025. We are beyond excited to continue our lives together as husbands (!!!) and cannot wait to celebrate our love with all of you on the big day!

We wish to acknowledge that our wedding will be celebrated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded land of the Lenni-Lenape people. We also recognize the countless queer leaders who fought and continue to fight for queer liberation and equal rights – especially trans women of color and drag performers. Without these strong community voices to pave the way for us, the celebration of our wedding would not be possible today.