We’re getting married!

Most of our friends and family know this, but if you don’t, let me share that we are your quintessential ‘high school sweetheart’ couple. We met at the end of my freshman and Casey’s sophomore year; however, not everyone knows the real series of events that would lead us to today and our upcoming wedding, so I would love to share a little more about how we began. If you were to take a guess at who pursued whom, you may have thought of Casey as being the one to 'make the first move,' but if that was your first guess then I am sorry to share that you would be wrong. I was certainly the first one to reach out to Casey after originally spotting him during lunch my freshman year, telling my friend 'I'm going to date that boy' while trying to discreetly point Casey out to her without drawing attention, and eventually sent a DM via MySpace (yes, I know it's now a relic in the social media realm) all those years ago. Although we didn’t start dating until a few months after our initial chats back and forth, we have been nearly inseparable since we began dating in August 2009. Now- if you do that math correctly, you’d be right in calculating that we will be celebrating our incredible 15 years together in August 2024, ahead of our wedding in February 2025. We could not be more excited to have the opportunity to spend our upcoming wedding day celebrating our milestone year with our closest friends and family!

Following both of us graduating from Boulder Creek, we were a little unsure of where life would take either of us, though we both knew we wanted the other to continue to be a part of whatever life that would be for the other. It was not without struggle or hardship that we have made it to where we are today and that initial desire to make us work no matter how challenging it may have felt originally (teenagers and their hormones- it's a miracle we survived LOL), I am so glad that we pushed through each year to get to this moment together. Post high school, I moved to Los Angeles within a month of graduating to pursue a degree at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles and Casey developed his role as a coffee connoisseur while working at one of our favorite Downtown Phoenix hot spots, Lux, and playing music with his band (and band of friends). Long distance was not always a treat, but I have to say, it certainly provided us both with a deeper appreciation for the time we did have to spend together and it was short lived given my move home to Phoenix not even a year later to obtain my Bachelor's from ASU. Casey continued to evolve his enthusiasm within the service industry, changing roles from coffee and cocktails at Lux to the kitchen Stock and Stable following a great offer from a contact he'd made over the years. By this point, I was nearly done with school, we had moved into our one and only home - a quaint, older Uptown Phoenix apartment, and had adopted our incredible big kitty (Hyde) and baby cat (Orie). I often struggle with how quickly the time has passed when thinking about our early years living together- feels like it's only been a 'few' years, though in reality it's been nearly a decade in the home we've created and little family we have curated together. Fast forward to a year following my graduation from ASU in May 2016, I was loving my retail job as the Assistant Store Manager at Lucky Brand, which I'd worked up to after starting as a part-time sales associate when I moved back to Phoenix in May 2013. Casey then accepted a Supervisor role at UPS in September 2017, with the sole intention of working for a company that would provide benefits and could assist him with college tuition so that he could also obtain his degree. Shortly after Casey began his 7 year career at UPS in Fall 2017, I decided to change things up by pursuing a new career of my own as well, leading me to Vanguard in January 2018. Again, looking back at these years, it makes me think 'Where did the time go?' but I also know that in thinking about the future, we're about to embark on a brand new adventure and the next stage of our lives together and I cannot wait to see what incredible challenges and triumphs that are still yet to come.

Over a decade of dating, living together, and creating our family with our kitties, Casey FINALLY asked me to marry him in New York City on October 15, 2022. Casey is nearly done with school- what began as 'just an Associates' has turned into him on track to obtain his Bachelor's of Science degree in Business Management in November 2024. I've recently accepted a new role at Vanguard as a Correspondence Manager within Wealth Management and will begin to study for my Series 24 and Series 66 financial licenses in the coming weeks to months so that I can transition into this new role once they're obtained.