’Twas the night before Christmas… When Sam forgot to message Braden first after they matched on Bumble (classic Sam). So, hoping for a Christmas miracle, Braden hit his one-time Hail Mary Extend button. Sam got the notification, messaged him back immediately, and something deep in her gut whispered: This is him. This is the person you’ve been growing toward. This is the love of your life. They met the very next day for what was supposed to be a casual date, but it turned effortlessly into the first chapter of everything. Braden picked her up, they wandered the aisles of the brand-new Total Wine like two kids on the loose, grabbed a bottle of tequila, and ended up drinking it straight from the bottle while listening to music on the rooftop of Sam’s apartment overlooking downtown Houston. They talked for hours. They bonded over early-2000s pop punk like the little emo kids they still are at heart. They fell asleep on the patio like two teenagers who didn’t want the night to end. And after that… they just kept choosing each other. They grew close through a global pandemic and turned it into an adventure. By October, they moved into a tiny garage apartment together, survived the apocalyptic freeze of February 2021 like two feral raccoons burrowed under every blanket they owned, and bought their first home just weeks later. Then came August. Surprise: they’re pregnant. Oops? Maybe. But also… it made perfect sense for two people who have never followed the rulebook. They embraced it with open hearts. With every phase of parenthood, their love stretched, cracked open, healed, expanded, and deepened. They were not perfect. But through every high, low, and trench they trudged through, they made the same choice again and again: Come back home to each other. Swallow the pride. Grow as a team. Choose “us.” Now they’re raising Lily, building their dream venue from the ground up, and pouring their souls into a space where art, live music, cocktails, and human connection will be the main act. A place where strangers will meet, be inspired, and maybe fall into their own version of magic, just like they did. And now they want to celebrate the life they’ve chosen, the big ambitions they've met head-on, the dreams they've chased, the devotion that carried them through every chapter, and the adventure still unfolding, with the people who have supported them as they’ve danced to their own melody from the very beginning.