Sarah and I met at the beginning of our sophomore year at Cal during a social function hosted by her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, in San Francisco. Ok it was a big AF themed invitation party. Luckily, one of the first non-water polo friends I made in the dorms at Cal was also a Kappa Kappa Gama and I was able to convince her to give me a ticket to their party. Not only did it gain me entry to said party but shortly after arriving, she introduced me to Sarah. We chatted, busted some sweet moves on the dance floor and enjoyed a drink or two. It would be great (albeit a little less interesting) to end the story there and say it was love at first sight and that we’ve been together ever since but I was certainly not mature enough at the time to realize exactly how amazing the young woman I’d just met truly was. We had a relatively long road to go down before we were together, but I knew from the first moment that Sarah was something special and that I had to figure out how to keep her in my life. As much as I’d like to think that my dance moves and banter that first night cemented my place in Sarah’s heart forever, in truth I owe a great debt of gratitude to the two rescue kittens my flatmate and I had adopted, Zorro and Money Buckets. Because of those two adorable little fluffballs Sarah agreed to come over and even came back once or twice (WIN!), though I suspect Zorro and Money Buckets were the real reason for the return visits. We traveled in overlapping social circles, had several mutual friends, met for the occasional (ok, almost weekly) lunch and developed a close friendship. Despite the kitten advantage however, things did not work out for us romantically during our time at Cal.

Following graduation, I moved to New Zealand to spend time closer to my extended family, then to Australia to pursue my Masters in Environmental Science. Sarah remained in the Bay Area to earn her law degree and then moved to Oahu to begin her blossoming career as a lawyer. We remained in close contact for the five years that we lived on opposite sides of the Pacific and as time wore on, Sarah was on my mind more and more. No one has or will ever stack up next to Sarah’s intelligence, beauty, impeccable character (and not to mention ability to put up with my nonsense for the nearly 9 years we’d been friends up to that point) and I knew that I was on the wrong side of the Pacific. In early 2014, 9 years after I used my rescue kittens initiate our friendship, I packed all of my belongings into three large suitcases and moved from Sydney to Hawaii in pursuit of the woman who is most certainly my soulmate. Although it took some time to get there, that was by far the best decision I have ever made. We can’t wait for you to join us to celebrate our wedding! With love and Aloha, Mike and Sarah