Sam and Stephanie were introduced to each other by their mutual friend Rena Schweizer in 2011. They met at Stephanie's birthday party at Bodega Wine Bar in Santa Monica and bonded over a love for the Pixar film Ratatouille. Stephanie was in graduate school at UCLA and Sam was still trying to break into the film industry, so they spent many nights together cooking dinner to save money and working on their laptops. After a little while, they moved in together and got two great pups, Cecil and Junebug, who bring them so much joy. In 2016, Sam's career took him to South Africa, and he missed his Stephanie-and-dogs family so much and didn't want to ever be without them. When he returned to the States, he got his grandma's ring from his mom. In the winter of 2016 Stephanie was wrapping up her PhD and accepted a post-doc at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. They went down to Escondido to check out the town and her future field site, and Sam proposed while wearing some really bad sunglasses. Stephanie said yes and the rest is history!