T & U

Every story has a slightly different beginning depending on who’s telling it. Uyen insists they first met in Fall 2016 at a back-to-school VSA party in Madison, while Tan remembers it as Fall 2017 at a VSA leadership conference in Chicago. What they both agree on is that life had a quiet habit of placing them in each other’s orbit long before anything made sense; though fortunately for Uyen, Facebook and Instagram friendship timestamps strongly support her version of events. Tan has since learned this is not a debate he tends to win. By early 2018, that orbit began to feel more intentional, and in March 2018, they officially started dating, beginning a long-distance relationship between UW-Madison and DePaul University. Unknowingly, they were stepping into years of flights, FaceTimes, and learning how to build something steady across distance. From the very beginning, FaceTime became part of their rhythm: Uyen studying while Tan played video games, both of them sharing ordinary, quiet moments that somehow made everything feel close. In May 2018, Tan graduated college, and Uyen met his family over graduation weekend, an early milestone that felt unexpectedly natural, like she had always been meant to be there. Shortly after, Uyen moved into her first studio apartment in Chicago, and Tan helped her move in, turning a simple day of boxes into one of their first glimpses of building a life together. One week later, they went to their first festival, EDC Las Vegas, where Tan discovered a new passion for festival life that has since become part of the story they share. After EDC, Tan moved back to Northern Virginia for the summer before starting his job in New York, a brief pause before life expanded again. That summer, they continued quietly stepping into each other’s worlds: Tan met Uyen’s family in Wisconsin, and Uyen made her first trip to Northern Virginia and DC. By fall, Tan moved to New York City, and by December, Uyen visited for the first time, expanding their long distance into a life spanning multiple cities, but still anchored by constant FaceTimes and a sense of presence that never really felt distant. In March 2020, Uyen moved to NYC on the same day the world shut down due to COVID-19. It was not planned, but in hindsight, it felt very fitting; choosing each other right as everything else paused. From there, life became a series of changes and growth: new jobs, shared routines, moves, and bigger dreams, all grounded in the same quiet certainty of continuing to choose one another through every season. Together, they built a life across cities and continents, from Madison, Chicago, New York City, and Northern Virginia to trips through Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Colorado, Las Vegas, and many more in-between, collecting memories that always felt like pieces of something larger they were building together. In January 2024, Tan proposed in Japan. Uyen thought it was just another trip, another shared adventure, another chapter. Instead, it became one of the most meaningful surprises of her life, shaped by years of shared history and a quiet understanding between them. In March 2024, they moved to Northern Virginia and began their next chapter together. In April 2024, they adopted Maple, who very quickly made it clear she was not just part of the story, but a central character. In July 2024, they were legally married, a quiet milestone in a life already deeply shared. And in September 2025, they bought their first home in Northern Virginia, officially planting roots for the years ahead. Through every version of themselves, across cities, seasons, and time, they have kept choosing each other, gently and consistently, in all the ways that matter most. And now, they can’t wait to celebrate this next chapter with the people who have been part of their story from the very beginning.