While Marissa has never been camping and is not one to call herself "outdoorsy", she has the wilderness to thank for introducing her to Noah. While at UCLA for a Wilderness First Responder recertification class, Noah opened his phone and behold! There was Marissa's smiling face on his dating app, only appearing because of how close he was to her apartment. He simply had to swipe right and see what she was like. Now, this was one of those dating apps where the woman has to message first and Marissa started off the conversation with a benign "how is your Monday going?" A few messages later and Marissa and Noah had set a first date time and place, Blue Bottle Coffee in Culver City. The day arrived and Marissa was quite nervous. She got up, got dressed, and headed out the door hoping she wouldn't be late. As she approached the coffee shop, she saw that the street was closed for a 5K run. Not being familiar with the area, she texted Noah and told him she was unfortunately going to be late because she had to figure out how to get around the street closures and find parking. At last, she walked up to the coffee shop and sat down to wait. Noah had also gotten stuck in the street closures. Then, Marissa saw him rounding the corner. He was much taller than she thought and instantly the nerves set in. They walked to the counter, ordered their drinks (unbeknownst to Marissa, Noah doesn't drink coffee), and sat down outside. Suddenly, both Noah and Marissa realized that they were very hungry. Thinking it was lunch time, the both looked at their phones to check the time. To their excitement and slight horror, it was already 2PM! Their date had lasted 4 hours and they were both going to be late for the Oscar watching parties they were attending (Marissa was hosting hers)! They said a quick goodbye and went on their ways. The rest, as they say, is history!

As usual, Marissa isn't very good at surprises... After months of sharing rings with Noah that she thought she liked, Marissa told Noah that she wanted to go try on rings. Little did she know that Noah and her two best friends had been putting together a spreadsheet of every single ring she had previously suggested and Noah was going to buy a ring in the coming week! To make a long story short, we went to try on rings and ended up choosing the one that Noah was planning to buy in the first place. One week later we were engaged!