Justine's Version: I moved to the Bay Area in the summer of 2014 for a job. Through some random events, I began attending Ignite Ministry. I spent the first year there meeting anyone and everyone I could, hoping to find my people. Looking back, I know that time was good for both of us, since we hadn't met yet, to figure out what we needed. It took an entire year for Philip and I to meet, because we're both not that observant. We worked together for a church event and I honestly couldn't tell you what I thought of him. Every time we talk about it, he can detail exactly what he thought of me, but I have no answer (oops). Yet somehow after that, we became friends. Our friendship was founded on a mutual love for Slurpees, movies (especially Will Smith) and talking...a lot. It took a whole year for us to realize that we wanted to date and then another four months of praying to be sure. By the time we started officially dating, he had made it explicitly clear that he was in it for the long haul. Philip's Version: Justine had been at Ignite for a year before I met her for the first time. She was coordinating an event and I remember thinking "Who is this and why is she in charge of this?" Our initial interactions were strictly professional but we quickly moved onto other topics, mainly our shared love of TV shows like Friends and The Office. At first, I wasn't interested in dating her. After all, she had made it clear that she wasn't looking to date anyone, much less someone younger. So we stayed friends. But all that changed because of Gary Clark Jr, one of my favorite blues artists. I stumbled upon a Rolling Stones article in which he talks about how he met his wife. “I didn’t think much of her, which is funny,” he says. “And then we just kinda hit it off, man. I was, like, ‘Yeah. I like this. A lot. I want this to be around, a lot, all the time.'” So that's it. Yeah I wanted her to be around like, all the time. It could work. It could totally work.

P: I knew I wanted to propose at the end of 2019. So after asking Justine's parents for their blessing, I told her to reserve every Saturday in December. J: For those of you that know me, this was the most frustrating thing ever. Every Saturday?! P: I knew she would be trying to guess which Saturday it would be so I enlisted the help of her roommate, Gabby to keep her in the dark. J: I literally tried to trick Philip every time we talked into revealing what he had planned every Saturday, but to no avail. P: I had planned to take her to Santa Cruz and propose on the beach where we went for our first date. We spent the morning hanging out and just enjoying the day. J: I was secretly hoping that it would happen that day, but didn't want to get myself too excited P: All day, I was trying to make small talk, asking her how she thought she would feel after we got engaged and who she would want to tell. J: Literally the most difficult small talk ever. I didn't want to get too worked up about the possibility, especially if it wasn't going to happen that day. Philip was cool and collected and gave nothing away. P: Given that I had told her to reserve every Saturday, I thought she would have known it was coming. J: I had no clue. P: She really didn't. She wasn't sure it was happening until I actually got down on one knee. J: I then promptly started crying and blacked out. I have no idea what he said.