Rehearsal Dinner

Omni Houston Hotel

Wedding Day

Sunday Evening

Our Wedding

Our relationship began January of 2020 (pre-COVID). I was in Los Angeles interviewing for Residency Programs and David was in Houston. We matched on J-swipe and began talking! Our first date was only a few weeks later at Woosters Garden. I was nervous and was rambling on about a book I was reading the entire date and David was sitting there smiling/listening to my probably very boring babbling about a sci fi book probably created for preteens.We continued texting and talking on the phone. I went back to San Antonio to continue my medical training and David remained in Houston. I then drove back for one weekend and little did we know at that time but that weekend is when the world changed due to COVID. I finished out my medical school online from my parents’ house quarantined with my mom and dad. David was only a few miles away but quarantined at his house with his best friend (AKA the best man) and his best friends wife.During that time, we spoke on the phone often discussing our lives, audio books we were listening to, and our future goals. We played virtual games and watched movies at the same time (clicking start at the exact same moment), and wondering when this whole quarantine would be over.I then received an offer to work at Miami Childrens Hospital (March 2020) as a Pediatric Resident and was thrilled at the opportunity to move to a new city with a beach and to receive training in Pediatrics. We continued talking and went back and forth on what to do as we enjoyed talking to each other but in only a few months I would be moving across the country.As we had only been on one date in person due to COVID but spent many hours creating a connection through conversation the decision was tough. Ultimately, we thought it best that we remained friends but also open to new opportunities while apart.(May 2020) My parents helped me move to Florida! David and I continued talking as friends and I believe during this time is when his family and friends found out about me. His mom loves to tell the story of when she saw David in the backyard on the phone for hours which surprised her because he was not one to talk on the phone much. His best friend knew something was up when he kept leaving mid show to take phone calls. He would say “Say hi to Amanda for me!”.Throughout the year that I was away in Miami we did drift apart. During that time, I missed our conversations. I missed how easy it was to talk together and that our conversations were at times deeper or more intellectually stimulating. November 2020, I was able to return to Houston to visit family after Thanksgiving. Wedecided to meet up for a drink while I was in town. During drinks, we discovered how similar our lives were growing up and what values we shared together. We also really enjoyed talking in person, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. We then met up with his best friend and his best friend’s wife for a game night. The very next evening we decided to meet up again for drinks and dinner! Within a month we were officially dating!David came to Miami for the first time in January for my birthday. He kept returning for more visits with each visit extending from a weekend to a week to longer. Eventually, we discussed David moving to Miami since I would be here until the end of residency. David made the move a few months later and our relationship grew to become more serious. We spent our free moments at the beach, touring new museums and restaurants, and hanging out at home. We were able to take trips to North Carolina, The Keys, and of course many trips back to Houston.David proposed to me November 28th, 2021 while we were at home on the first night of Hanukkah. After an evening of making latkes, opening presents, and lighting the menorah.These months engaged have been a whirlwind of emotions. We are excited and hopeful about our future together. We are impatient and counting down the days to our wedding and our plans to build a family together. At the same time we are stressed with the day to day of work, bills, and wedding planning. As we try to live in the moment and enjoy this time together while looking towards to the future and all the exciting things to come I am just thankful to have David by my side. I am thankful to have him sitting with me on the couch as we binge Netflix shows, listening to me as I complain about the things that upset me, and laughing/smiling with me while we enjoy life. I cannot wait to marry him and live life together as #Hoffmanandwife

Amanda’s Perspective: 

I’ve admired Amanda from the start and the ways that she amazes me have only grown in depth over time. When we first matched on J-Swipe in January of 2020. I messaged her, and she said she was in Los Angeles. I was a bit confused, since I was living in Houston. She was in LA interviewing for work after medical school. She had several months left in San Antonio before graduating. San Antonio is only a few hours from Houston, so I figured it was worth it to see what might come of getting to know this beautiful, fun, adventurous, and intellectual woman. I knew so much because she’d been doing some hiking and visited some TV show sets in between finding where she would launch the residency portion of her career as a pediatrician. I was a little intimidated, but way more excited and just in awe. I had to learn more about her. She flew back into Houston from LA because her parents live there. We planned a date while she’d be in town before returning to San Antonio. Oddly enough, it was the evening before her birthday. We met and talked over a drink. The first half of the date she babbled on, thanks to my eager requests to listen to anything she was willing to share, about some crazy book with moon people with wild societal rules and government. I couldn’t tell you much about the book, but I could tell from this how passionate she is and how much she thinks. Her brain never stops. With our second drink, we stepped outside to sit by a firepit. There, we had conversations about our plans and hopes for the future, dreams and preferences for how we want to live our lives, and about our backgrounds growing up. It was one of the most real conversations that I’ve ever had. I kept looking at my watch throughout the date, and I think Amanda began to get the impression that I was bored or ready to leave. She was quite surprised when, the last time I checked my watch, I yelled “Happy Birthday!”. Being past midnight on a weekday at this point, we decided to end the date shortly after, not knowing when the next time we’d see each other would be, but thankfully I’d found someone worth a 3.5-hour drive to get to know each other more and see what it might turn into…About six weeks later, March 2020, we hadn’t been able to see each other because of work and school and lots going on. We had kept in touch quite well though. Texting and talking on the phone frequently. She hadn’t gotten tired of my dad jokes yet. Then a whirlwind came through to alter our expectations of what our individual futures and our future together would look like. As I was flying home from a job interview in Nashville that I was prepared to get an offer for, I started to hear about a new virus. Next thing you know, the job I interviewed for was on hold to hire, and Amanda’s medical school closed to avoid any risk of spreading. She quarantined at her parents’ house, and I stayed where I was living at the time, at my friends’ Ryan and Renee’s house. The distance between Amanda and I had shrunk to under 14 miles, and yet we could not see each other because of the growing concern over the risk of spreading covid. So, instead, we continued to text and talk, and because there was nowhere to go at night, we found some online or virtual versions of games to play, and we started checking off some classic movies on Netflix that neither of us had ever seen. In order to feel like we were watching together, we would text “pause” and the time of the movie and then “1, 2, 3, play” so that we didn’t miss a beat. Days turned to nights, which turned to weeks and soon Amanda received an offer to begin work in Miami. She would move in May. When Amanda moved, we decided that, despite the connection that we had and the great foundation that we’d built in the time that we’d known each other, we would just be friends while we were so far apart. We stayed in touch some, but we both got busy with work and began to drift apart. As time passed, we stayed in touch. Not nearly as much as we had before, but things picked up again leading into Thanksgiving 2020. Amanda was coming home to see family for the holiday, and what better time for a second date than 10-11 months later? We went out and had a great time sitting together and talking, in person, after so many months of building such a genuine connection from afar. It was very easy, since we had focused so much on just trying to understand and get to know each other for so long. So easy and so enjoyable, in fact, that we had a second date a day or two later, before Amanda returned to Miami from her trip home to Houston. Fast forward to New Year’s eve 2021 after more frequent phone calls and FaceTimes and a billion text messages, and Amanda and I had even more to celebrate. We decided it only made sense to take this dating thing more seriously, despite the distance, and see what our relationship could evolve into. I visited Amanda a couple weeks later, which happened to be her birthday weekend and the anniversary of our first date. Then, I visited again in February. That happened to be when a terrible freeze fell over Texas, and because of issues with power, airlines, and roads, I stayed for several days longer than expected. For anyone reading, Miami really isn’t such a terrible place to have to go to see someone that you’re falling in love with. While Texas was frozen over and without power, we were laying on a hammock on the beach and exploring some very walkable parts of town with terrific views and delicious food. Amanda then flew in to go to a friend’s wedding in Texas, in March, and I visited her again in early April.After that, I packed as many clothes as I could in a bag and returned to Miami 1-2 weeks later, where I would spend 90% of my time working remotely and living with Amanda, until October 2021 when I accepted an offer to work in a Miami-based job. It was official. Everything was working out. We were getting along as well as ever, having fun and laughing every moment we spent together, and now I was an official Floridian. Perfect timing, too, because earlier that Summer in 2021, when Amanda and I had taken some time off for vacation, we went to Houston before several days hiking in Asheville, North Carolina. While in Houston, after the dinner where we first introduced our parents to each other, I told Amanda’s dad, Vincent, that I had intentions of proposing to Amanda, but not without his permission. He approved without hesitation, and we proceeded to sing karaoke at the Wedelich house until we simply couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. Only one thing left to do. As late November 2021 rolled around, I was settled into my new job, officially living and working in Miami, and making the most of any free time that we had together. Our first Hanukkah spent together was a memorable one. On the first night of Hanukkah, before dinner, Amanda and I went on a walk for about an hour. The weather was beautiful, and we wanted to take some time to enjoy the weather and just chat about everything from where we’ve come to where things are going and how exciting it was just to have found each other. Afterwards, I cooked latkes for the first time in my life, and they magically turned out splendid. We drank wine, lit candles, and exchanged gifts. It felt like we were really a family of our own. Then, what we did next was not so much of a Jewish tradition, but just a wholesome and nice thing for anyone to experience. We drove around the neighborhood with the nice, big houses, to look at the Christmas lights that had been put up so far. We played some great throwback tunes in the car for us millennials and jammed out at the top of our lungs. After we got home, I told Amanda how much that I love her and how she’s my whole world. I got on my knee and asked her to marry me. She politely said, “thank you” while still in shock from the surprise of the proposal. Then, after the longest 2 seconds of my life, she said, “Yes, of course!” I could find a million words to describe the time since then. Happily ever after is the simplest way to put it.&nbsp;

David's Perspective

Our Story

Photos

Jocelyn Loeb 

Bailey Helm

Tania Augustino 

Alison Prudhomme

Shelby Casali

Miranda Hinton

Jenn Hoffman 

Rebecca Polansky 

Ryan Schreier

Dustin Edwards 

Avi Rafalson

Evan Brandoff 

Brandon Walters 

Nick Whitcraft

Jacob Loeb 

Mike Helm 

Zaid Kayyali 

Ross Ward 

Jake Fletcher 

Jackson Wedelich

Wedding Party 

Q + A

Registry

-Check-in time is at&nbsp;3 pm and check-out time is 12noon.-25% discount on overnight self parking.-BOOK BY: Nov 2, 2022

Travel

Memorial Park Golf Course and Driving Range

The Galleria

Biergarten Hours:Sunday11:00am – 6:00pmMonday – TuesdayCLOSEDWednesday – Thursday3:00 – 9:00pmFriday3:00 – 10:00pmSaturday11:00am – 10:00pm Beer tokens and food items for sale. There should not be an entry fee.

Karbach Brewing Co.

Ticket PriceChild&nbsp;(ages 3 &amp; younger) <a href="https://tickets.spacecenter.org/WebStore/LandingPage?CG=admissioncg&amp;C=admissionc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Free</a>Kid&nbsp;(ages 4-11) <a href="https://tickets.spacecenter.org/WebStore/LandingPage?CG=admissioncg&amp;C=admissionc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">$24.95</a>Adult&nbsp;(ages 12 &amp; older) <a href="https://tickets.spacecenter.org/WebStore/LandingPage?CG=admissioncg&amp;C=admissionc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">$29.95</a>Senior&nbsp;(ages 65 &amp; older) <a href="https://tickets.spacecenter.org/WebStore/LandingPage?CG=admissioncg&amp;C=admissionc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">$27.95</a> Open 10am-5pm daily with some activities available from 6pm-10pm.

Space Center Houston

Waterwall

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.,&nbsp;last entry at 4:00 p.m.Open 7 days a week. Ticket reservations: https://ticket.houstonzoo.org/exhibit?_ga=2.231964635.535504907.1656265772-1295350349.1656265772 Prices vary on day and time. Adults ~$21-24/person. Children/seniors $17-19pp. Children &lt;2 yrs old are free.

Houston Zoo

All day pass Adult- $24.99All day pass Child- $22.99

Downtown Aquarium

Things to Do

Food, drinks, entertainment at The Omni Hotel

Mokara Spa and Salon (713) 624-4876 Spa Services: <a href="https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/spa/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-spa-brochure.pdf?la=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/spa/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-spa-brochure.pdf?la=en</a> Fitness Center: Offering all our guests a fully equipped fitness center available 24 hours a day, Omni Houston Hotel ensures that working out has never been more convenient. The fitness center is in a separate building connected to the hotel that can easily be accessed through the deck outside. While you’re working out, please enjoy complimentary fruit, water, and towels. A locker room with locks is also available for your convenience. For more information, please call the front desk at (713) 871-8181.Guests who want to exercise outdoors can jog or bike. Please inquire at the concierge for maps of local trails.

Birdies Cafe and BarMonday – Sunday:&nbsp;7:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. Breakfast buffet on Saturday and Sunday Breakfast Menu: <a href="https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/birdies/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-birdies-breakfast-menu.pdf?la=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/birdies/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-birdies-breakfast-menu.pdf?la=en</a> All Day Menu: <a href="https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/birdies/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-birdies-all-day-menu.pdf?la=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/birdies/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-birdies-all-day-menu.pdf?la=en</a>

La Reserve, a fine whiskey loungeTuesday&nbsp;- Saturday:&nbsp;5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Enjoy premium, local whiskey blends and Texas tapas in a cozy setting that pays homage to Houston's history. Menu: <a href="https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/la-reserve/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-la-reserve-bar-menu.pdf?la=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/la-reserve/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-la-reserve-bar-menu.pdf?la=en</a>

Black Swan Night ClubFriday and Saturday:&nbsp;9:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m. Men: No athletic wear, hats or casual footwear. No torn or overly baggy clothing.Ladies: Please dress to impress in business casual or cocktail attire. Menu:<a href=" https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/menus/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-black-swan-menu.pdf?la=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> https://www.omnihotels.com/-/media/images/hotels/houprk/restaurants/menus/houprk-omni-houston-hotel-black-swan-menu.pdf?la=en</a>

MoonShot Waterside BarSaturday:&nbsp;10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.(DJ Entertainment 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. poolside) Sunday:&nbsp;12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Amanda & David