How They Met | Superstar analytics supervisor John Morris and newcomer analyst Jenny Shi met while working at the same advertising agency in New York City - with the luxury of working on different client teams while quickly becoming tequila and trivia buddies at department happy hours.

From Jenny’s Perspective | Jenny was eager to build a fun team culture, and set up a team outing to attend a free concert in Brooklyn. After the concert ended, and the team huddled in a circle to determine the next move for continued alcoholic activities, John stood to the left of Jenny, and that was the first moment she felt butterflies.

Earlier that year, Jenny had made a personal decision to attend as many music festivals and concerts as she could with the PTO she had. She purchased a birthday gift for herself to attend an electronic dance music concert at Madison Square Garden and the headliner just so happened to host a city-wide scavenger hunt challenge, where Jenny and another friend won another set of tickets. With an extra ticket at hand, Jenny offered it to John. This would be the first night they held hands, and the very first of many concerts they would attend (fun fact - John’s brother and Best Man, Sam, was at the same concert!). But Jenny still wasn’t convinced that John liked her back.

That same month, John helped arrange a karaoke event to celebrate all October birthday babies in the department. A few gin & tonics into the night, Jenny sent John a long text message along the lines of “I like you, but if you don’t like me back, I’ll be cool - I promise!”. The rest is history.

John and Jenny knew early on into their relationship that they wanted to move out of New York City. Eventually, they landed on Colorado - the land of craft beer, no humidity and a smaller population of mosquitoes. It was here that Jenny fell more in love with John’s witty banter, ridiculously long eyelashes, masterful skills for cleaning, endless energy for hiking, and unconditional love and support for Jenny’s career growth. Now 7 years’ in, it feels like they’ve already been married for forever, but Jenny is so excited to see what’s yet to come! She has been patiently waiting to be a dog owner for more than 2 decades now. ;)

From John’s Perspective | John and Jenny worked in the same department at Zenith Media, but on different clients. They developed a professional respect for each other, and got to know each other through work events and happy hours. They grew closer over their shared love for bar trivia, tequila, music and concerts, and after they became officially boyfriend and girlfriend, their relationship grew through a shared love of food - tasting their way through dry-aged beef burgers, tacos (lots of tacos!), Korean fried chicken - and John introduced Jenny to her new favorite way of dining: chef’s tasting menus and bartender’s choice for cocktails.

Pretty early into their relationship, they decided they wanted to move out of NYC, and landed on moving to Colorado in 2015. 6 years’ living in Colorado has given John and Jenny so much life and adventure! John and the Morris family introduced Jenny to downhill skiing (though she’s more partial to cross-country skiing now), to the lifestyle of hot-tubbing in the snowy weather and après ski, and to his family’s favorite Vail restaurant, Sweet Basil. They’ve been to numerous Red Rocks concerts - John particularly enjoys that the park has paved the Upper North Lot parking lot - it’s 100% the best place to park and tailgate compared to the rest of the parking options, and he proudly accepts that this means he and Jenny are getting older (and wiser)!

They also both enjoy hiking - John discovered the Lion’s Lair trailhead which quickly became his favorite at-dusk hike, and most recently in the pandemic, both he and Jenny would hike Lion’s Lair twice a week together. This would be the trail where John proposed, in only the most JTEAM way. John found 2 perfect places for the proposal, however Jenny wasn’t hyped about taking stops at new places on the trail - she even said it’d be rude to stand on one of the giant boulders (she really had no clue what was about to happen). Pivoting quickly, John stopped for some water, pulled the ring box out from the Camelbak and exclaimed, “something’s happening!!!” - she said, “YES”!

They’ve grown so much together as a couple in Colorado, having gone through several job changes, both turning 30, attending several music festivals a year, and recently both diving into their musical hobbies of music production (Jenny) and electric guitar and pedal-board curation (John). John is so excited to laugh through life with Jenny and to see how their relationship continues to grow!

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