THE DATING BACKSTORY

I was on my way to the Cru "couches", the designated hang-out spot for Cal Poly Pomona Cru (a Christian club on campus) members on the first day of school of my sophomore year. When I approached there was someone new I didn't recognize... you guessed it, it was Andrea. When we first met, I thought she was cute and wanted to get to know her more. We started talking and seeing each other at Cru events more and more.

About a month later, a group of our Cru friends wanted to go line dancing, and we ended up both going. On the car ride there, one of our friends played Paper Rings by Taylor Swift, which we were both singing along and jamming out to; it unofficially later became "our song." That night, we spent a lot of time together, and that's when my interest for her really started growing.

I knew that I wanted to ask her out, and she mentioned she was doing homework at a coffee shop, so I asked to join her. I met her there, where I don't remember either of us getting any work done. The coffee shop closed, and I still hadn’t asked her out. Afterwards, she still wanted to hang out, so I went to Target with her, where I finally asked her out in the parking lot, and she said yes.

With some help from our friends and my mom, I planned our first date to Village Grille in downtown Claremont and mini golfing at Boomers afterwards. The night finished early, but we wanted to continue talking and hanging out, so we went to Victoria Gardens and walked around.

We continued talking and going on dates for about 6 months before she felt ready to become "official," which happened to be in March of 2020. Due to Covid, we became "boyfriend and girlfriend" over Zoom and spent almost every day talking and hanging out on Zoom, until we would see each other about two months later.

As an honorable mention of our story, in the Spring semester of 2022, Andrea studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain. We were 9 hours apart, and since both of us were working and full time students, it made it very hard for us to find time to talk. We explored Amsterdam and Spain and got to celebrate our 2-year anniversary together. The long distance solidified our relationship; it showed that our relationship was worth and capable of persevering through the hard season of being separated.

THE PROPOSAL STORY

She had mentioned that she wanted a winter wedding and an engagement period of about 6 months, which basically meant a summer engagement.

Our little friend group ("chrofotten") plans a weekend trip around someone's birthday each year; this year we decided to go to Santa Barbara for Ryan Totten's and my birthday, which are both in July. Everything was starting to come together - a trip to Santa Barbara is scenic and great for photos, our close friends would already be there, and I didn't have to come up with a cover story for the trip.

Abby and Ella helped me plan out all the details, and we selected the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens as the location. On July 20, 2024, we show up and start walking around; while we're walking around, Chris Hwang was trying to help me find a scenic spot to ask, as well as being in constant communication with the "disguised" photographer. Little did we know that the Santa Barbara botanical gardens only had plants native to the area, which happened to be a lot of trees and shrubbery, and we were expecting more flowers.

After walking all around the gardens and not finding "the" spot, I remembered a spot we passed by earlier that was probably our best option, so Chris nonchalantly lead us back there. I then got on one knee, popped the question, and she said... YES!

THE DATING BACKSTORY

I feel like my story starts a little before his might. Sitting at my kitchen counter in high school at the time, I was talking with my now sister-in-law about going to Cal Poly Pomona the following year. Jordan, a little less interested in our conversation than we were, was listening in on us blabbering about the potential scope out of single men that were in Cru. Let's just say Colby was on that list, so he had been on my radar.

Fast forward to the start of my freshman year, I had started to make more friends in Cru, Colby being one of them. While hanging with friends going out line dancing and having a blast (Colby will probably romanticize this night), Colby did ask me to dance. Getting food afterwards with him and friend, in my head I concluded that I had a pleasant evening, but I determined it as "friend vibes only." Looks like we were on different pages here.

Referring back to Colby's story, the coffee shop was Dripp at the time. Eventually one thing lead to another and he had asked me out in the parking lot of my home target.

Our first date went really well and after talking in the arcade at Boomers to hear that his mom had given him ideas for the date, I thought that was really sweet. We continued on dates from then on. Being my very first relationship, I was very hesitant and fearful to jump in fully but God taught me a lot during that time.

On March 26th, 2020 we became official over Zoom. After dating for over 4 years, there has been a lot of ups and downs in our relationship where God taught me his sovereignty in it all. Struggling through my own doubts, fears and struggles with mental health, God has really shown me that Colby was someone I wanted to marry through his persistence in hard things when I was not at my best, loving me when it wasn't pretty. His patience mixed with my calculated skill of being high maintenance makes us the perfect match!

THE PROPOSAL STORY

Whatever he told you about this story, I knew everything before it happened but we don't like to tell him that.