In true millennial fashion, we met on Bumble in the fall of 2018. At the time, Joe was working for two education nonprofits, Play Works and Camp Galileo, and living in San Jose with his good friends Rene and Thembi. Brittany was a city planner with the City of Mountain View and a devout ballroom dancer, living in an apartment in Campbell with her friend Kat. Joe was the easygoing, light‑hearted antidote to Brittany's Type‑A neurosis (this has not changed). We quickly fell for each other, spending evenings and weekends at Joe's old house in San Jose trying out new recipes, watching all the seasons of Law & Order: SVU, and engaging in an utterly silly amount of DIY tie‑dyeing in the backyard. In 2019, Joe welcomed little Rocket, our spunky tuxedo kitty who brings us joy every day.

The year 2020 rolled around, and nothing really happened... just kidding. About two days into the first COVID‑19 shelter‑in‑place order, we broke the rules to be together. In 2021, we took the plunge and officially moved into a cute townhouse in Los Gatos along with Rocket, Kat, and her kitty Della. Over the years in Los Gatos, our love has grown, as have our tie‑dye and cooking skill sets.

We traveled to New Orleans for Christmas in 2024. We arrived on Christmas Eve and enjoyed live music and gumbo on Frenchmen Street. On Christmas morning, we took a stroll through an eerily quiet French Quarter and had coffee at a bar with a psychic pole dancer (classic New Orleans). That evening, we had a cozy dinner at our hotel's restaurant. After dinner, we made our way upstairs to our room, where Joe pulled out a ring box and asked Brittany to marry him. She gleefully said yes - and the rest is history!