we're so excited to celebrate with you!

I didn’t really know Jessie freshman year but always thought she was pretty. We officially met the next school year at a dorm party. She was playing beer pong and I thought “ok now is my time to impress her” (I’m notoriously good at beer pong as you all know). Of course, she destroyed me... which made me like her even more. We started to hang out a lot. We were in the same classes and we clearly got along really well. One night we stayed up until midnight talking about our childhoods, our families, and our passions. I had never felt that connected to a person, and I was falling for her as the seconds passed. I truthfully knew at this moment that I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. The next day, after agonizing over it for hours, I asked her on a date to go on a sunset hike. Five hours later, she says she is interested in somebody else. Oof. The next night we again spent hours outside talking. The conversation just flowed. It was always effortless. I was convinced she loved me back but didn’t know it yet, so I commited to waiting. I told any friend who would listen that I found the girl of my dreams. I'm not sure how I knew. But I did! The next semester, I switched classes just so I could see her more and walk home with her. Mind you, she was fully dating someone else at this point. I finally start to get over her, then she breaks up with her boyfriend and texts me asking to hang out. AHH! We spent the next few weeks together every day. It became clear she had feelings for me but I didn’t push it. First weekend of summer, Jessie came to visit me in LA. I finally told her I was crazy about her. She responded saying how amazing I am, how she has never been around someone who made her feel so happy, how my lifestyle is incredible… then proceeded to GRILL me with lengthy discussion questions. I clearly passed the test, and from that day on, every day has been better than the last. Three years later, I get to marry the woman of my dreams. Lucky me :)

We pretty much knew right away that we were going to be together forever. Well… as you read above, Brandon knew much earlier than I did… oops! But that’s beside the point. There has been no shortage of wedding and engagement conversations since the beginning of our relationship. After three years of dating, living together, and surviving a pandemic, we were ready to make it happen! The wedding conversations became more concrete, the engagement hints became more like shoves, and the ring pictures started to come out… And with a trip to Greece on the horizon, I was pretty dang confident. Now for the fun part: To preface - our lives are extremely intertwined with means we have full access to each other’s phones, passwords, everything. A surprise engagement was going to be a long shot no matter what. Sure enough, in the weeks leading up to our trip to Greece, I found the engagement ring packaging AND accidentally glimpsed an email titled “Santorini engagement photographer”… yikes! I kept it to myself at first but finally spilled the beans to Brandon. He kept his cool and told me he would just have to live with the fact that I would know the day of the engagement but didn’t know how it would happen. Fair enough. So for the entire trip, I knew the day that it was going to happen. I had my nails fancier than ever and had all my outfits planned. The night before the big day, I had booked us a wine tasting. We got there, had an amazing time, watched a beautiful sunset, and as we were getting our picture taken, he got down on one knee. Naturally, I said “this is fake” and fully believed that until the ring was out in front of my face. OMG! The moment was real, Brandon got choked up (score!), and I was COMPLETELY surprised. Round of applause for my B <3 And that’s how I got engaged to the love of my life!