Like so many modern romances, ours began with the help of online dating. My profile was—how do I put this—creative. A mirror selfie taken in the Fort Sam barracks, captioned: “Bout to get turnt at the Cheesecake Factory.” I thought it was a minor work of comic genius…at the time. James thought it was unforgettable. Possibly concerning, but definitely unforgettable. His profile was slightly less spirited. It said only “IT.” No caption. Three nearly identical photos of a hiking group—one of whom, I suspected, might be him. It was like a game of “Where’s Waldo,” if Waldo wore polarized sunglasses and refused to face the camera. Still, we matched. Our first messages were sweetly awkward—stammering and slightly misfired. But there was something there. We bonded over a mutual fondness of the outdoors and classic rock music. Things nearly ended prematurely when he made an ill-timed wisecrack about Taylor Swift making my Spotify top five. We met at a small coffee shop in downtown Nevada City. I was nervous. So was he. He told me he was from a tiny sliver of Idaho I’d only ever seen on a map and thought, “Wait, who actually lives there?” We talked about mountain adventures and mishaps, video games, obscure small town lore. I did most of the talking. He offered a few shy puns. We both left the date mostly sure we wanted to see each other but it was our second date that changed everything. We hiked a trail along the Yuba River. I brought Lakota—my loyal, socially anxious dog who treats strangers like they’re radioactive. At the trail’s end, as we sat by the water watching ladybugs flit around us like something out of a Studio Ghibli film, Lakota did something shocking. She walked over to James. Not cautiously. Not skeptically. But with total, unearned trust. She rested her head on his knee. He pet her. She didn’t flinch, bolt, or growl. She walked beside him the entire way back, gently nibbling at his hand like he’d always been part of our little pack. That was it. That was the moment. And we both felt it. From there, life became a montage. Long hikes that left us sun-tired and happy, wandering a little too far off trail but never so far we couldn’t find our way back. Campfire dinners of MREs—flameless, flavorless, somehow still perfect. Quiet nights in tents, inventing games, laughing about blisters, and pretending baby wipes were enough to make us civilized again. And then the blur of everything else: Long drives with the windows down and Come and Get Your Love on full volume. Grocery store puns that made me groan and grin—James holding up canned peas with his best serious face: “Will you peas be mine?” We moved in together. Which is romantic until it’s 2 a.m. and you realize the person you love sleeps diagonally, sheds socks like they’re in a production of Cinderella, and never remembers to put the lid back on anything. To be fair, I leave a constellation of half-drunk La Croix cans in every room and have never once extinguished a candle on purpose. It’s a sort of domestic jazz—beautiful, chaotic, mostly improvised. Naturally, we added three cats. Two mischievous kitten brothers, and later, my grumpy old-timer with a vendetta against being fed more than 1 minute late. Now our home hums with the sounds of purring, scampering, hissing, zooming, and the near constant sounds of things crashing.. It is loud. And wild. And very much ours. We’ve survived traffic jams, sunburns, lost keys, broken bones, not just two but three totalled vehicles and at least three minor furniture-related meltdowns (two of which occurred during the assembly of a single dresser). But we're always together. As said in my favorite rom-com, About Time: “We’re all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.” We're both so excited to see you all this summer to share this remarkable day. Love, -James and Rhianna