We're Getting Married!

The evening of December 31, 2014, Seema and I were both jet-lagged and active on Facebook. We had each recently touched down from Asia - me from China to spend the holidays with my family and Seema from Thailand after celebrating her sister's wedding. Both of us had known about each other over the years but never spoken. I noticed that she was active on Facebook and mustered up the courage to say hello and wish her a Happy New Year! She responded and the rest is history…

After months of messaging back and forth on Whatsapp and WeChat, I was eager to return to the states. Seema and I knew that we only had a few short weeks to spend together, in person, before our lives took opposite paths once again. Seema had been accepted into pharmacy school and chose to attend a university in Portland, Maine while I had been offered a job in San Francisco. Despite heading to opposite coasts = 3,195 miles apart, we were determined to give it a try! Our 3-hour time difference taught us very quickly how to be creative. We did everything from synchronizing movies on Netflix, getting ingredients to cook meals together, Facetiming during empty pockets of our days, and most importantly flying coast to coast every few months to spend a few days together in a new city. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t smooth, and it most certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was OURS. We made it work, we grew TOGETHER, and we fell in love.

On December 7th, 2019, Seema and I had just woken up at the Fairmont Chateau on Lake Louise, Canada. We had planned this trip for a couple months and we couldn’t wait to explore Banff National Park! Our morning started with a glacier hike in Johnston Canyon (highly recommend 10/10) and then headed back to the hotel for lunch! We snagged a table with the BEST, most picturesque, view of Lake Louise and were on our way to the location so I could “pop the question”. UNTIL…Seema felt something was suspicious about how I was sticking to a strict schedule when normally we both like to enjoy our vacations leisurely. She told me she wanted to ice skate and I couldn’t tell her about my other plans, so I agreed. I made an excuse about a having a “work” call (which she also found strange as it was Saturday) and instead I called our photographer to update her on the new plan. I came back and we started walking to the rink, shuffling through layers of snow, when Seema spotted a lady taking pictures in the distance and thought it was a good idea to ask her to take one of us. Little did she know that was OUR photographer. We thanked the lady and I then asked Seema to turn around and look at the mountains while I took picture of her for the ‘gram of course. She kept talking to me, but I wasn’t responding so she turned around to get my attention and I had already dropped to one knee and pulled out the ring! I had this whole speech planned but in the moment, I forgot everything and immediately asked her to marry me. She said YES, it was perfect! We called our closest family members to share the news and made it back to our room where I had arranged a picture collage of us over the years and the hotel staff decorated the room with chocolates, flowers and champagne! It was the BEST DAY.