How We Got Here

We met on a Tuesday in October, both caught in the same downpour outside the same little café in Portland. Noah had the only umbrella; Ava had the only free chair. What was meant to be a quick coffee turned into three hours, two refills, and a conversation neither of us wanted to end.

The years that followed were gloriously unremarkable — Sunday markets, slow breakfasts, a rescue dog named Biscuit who runs the household, and a shared habit of making big plans over small dinners. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, we stopped imagining our futures separately and started drawing them together.

Noah proposed at golden hour on the Sonoma coast, having carried the ring around in his coat pocket the entire afternoon and nearly lost his nerve twice. Ava said yes before he finished the sentence. We celebrated with fish and chips out of the paper, sandy and grinning, and called our families from the car on the way home.

Now we'd love to gather the people who shaped us — the friends who were there for the rainy Tuesday and every ordinary day since — for one very good evening among the vines. Thank you for being part of our story. We can't wait to celebrate with you.