We're getting married!

I met Sam in the fall of 2013 through a class we took together at UCSB called “Strange Familiars.” I loved everything about this class – the professor, the readings, the discussions – but my favorite thing of all was hearing Sam laugh at every dumb joke I made, which only encouraged me to make more. At the end of class, I would sometimes play the old piano in the corner of the classroom and pretend I didn’t notice Sam sitting nearby. Admittedly, it took me a long time to finally ask her out. As a dorky, poorly groomed guy who never shut up, I guess I was a little intimidated by her stylishness, her beauty, and how little she spoke. At the beginning of spring quarter, with a little help from some liquid courage, I asked her out and we quickly became inseparable. I learned how much more she spoke with her expressions and movements than her voice, while she saw that passion was the reason I got so easily excited. Who’d have thought a loud, goofy dude and a cool, quiet girl would make such a perfect couple? Strange familiars, indeed.

Early on in our relationship when I was living in Corona and he was living in LA, Matt wrote me a totally sappy but perfect love song. He later asked if he could use elements of "my song" for a musical he was working on and I said yes, but ONLY on the condition that he write me another song. Fast forward to the summer of 2020 and Bowie, Matt and I headed out to his parent's for his "uncle's birthday." Matt wanted to make a stop at the nearby duck pond and gardens to meet his parents and pick some oranges. It was one of the first places we took Bowie when we adopted him and I remember it being a beautiful summer day. As we turned into the pond, I saw his keyboard propped perfectly against the backdrop of the pond. Matt started playing a song I couldn't recognize that ended with the words, "Sam Bam, will you marry me?" He got down on one knee and I said, "Yes!" We're so excited to celebrate this next chapter of our lives with you! Meet you under the stars!