Malia and Rusty’s journey began in the most rom-com way possible- at a wedding Malia was catering for one of Rusty’s best friends in Calistoga. Malia had spent 2019 planning Brian and Ellen’s wedding, which was originally set for April 2020. But, as we all know, COVID had other plans. By May 2021, Malia was no longer working as a catering manager but was running a luxury hotel in Napa, close to Calistoga. When her former employer asked if she could fill in for the wedding since she already knew the couple, she agreed. After dinner, the couple invited Malia to stay for the reception, and that’s when she met Rusty. He was comically persistent, even saying, “Couldn’t you see us spending the rest of our lives together?” Malia wasn’t exactly interested at first, but Rusty somehow convinced her to grab a couple of drinks in San Francisco the following evening.

On their first date, Rusty tried for a kiss, but Malia politely declined. It was a cinematic moment —cute, awkward, and totally hilarious. The long distance from San Diego to San Francisco truly worked in Rusty’s favor as his instant obsession with Malia was muted by his inability to see her as much as he would have liked. Against all odds, they made it to a second date one full month later: a bar crawl complete with costumes that ended in improvised fake identities at a dive bar. It was during this adventure that they shared their first kiss.. After 4 months of unfiltered text conversations, hours-long calls and Facetimes, and monthly visits, Rusty had somehow managed to not completely scare off Malia, and finally won her over to the point that she had asked him to be her boyfriend on one fateful visit to San Diego. Over the course of the following 2 years they took advantage of remote work and embraced the “bi-residential” lifestyle, with Malia’s beach house in San Francisco (shoutout the La Playa OG’s) and Rusty’s beach house in Pacific Beach. Malia eventually took the leap to move out of the apartment she had shared for 8 years and down to San Diego to make a commitment to Rusty in the fall of 2023. On their 3 year anniversary, Rusty proposed to Malia in front of the San Diego skyline to capture their new home and their future of spending forever together.

By the time our favorite couple will get married, they will have been to 35 weddings, 7 countries, and countless concerts, events and parties together. They bought their first home together in September of 2024 in Encinitas surrounded by friends and around the corner from family. Here they plan to start a family of their own, beginning with a weiner dog named Churro. In recent years they have been blessed with a thriving community that keeps them staying active with softball and pickleball, jamming out to their own tunes, and constantly crafting and tasting the finest delicacies (and snacks).