Rence's Version: Kaiya and I first met at Southern. It was her Freshman year and my Sophmore. I think our first in person encounter was playing volleyball, but my first impression of her was watching her sing on stage at a Vespers. I remember being blown away by her voice. I put together a band every year for the night market that the school held and I invited her to be in it because I thought she was incredibly talented, but also because I had a massive crush. Marco can serve as witness to the fact that whenever she came up in conversation, I would jokingly talk about marrying her someday despite us not being close by any means at that time. Then we wrote a Christmas love song together in 2019, but then the pandemic hit and I figured I'd never see her again. Then one day in October of 2020 she messaged me and it spiraled into hours of conversation, facetime calls until 3am, and monthly drives to Florida to visit her. Our first date was watching a movie over Zoom! The pandemic was such a crazy time to live through but I could have never predicted that the butterfly effect of it would lead us together. Kaiya always exhudes love, respect, intelligence, and not a day goes by that I don't feel grateful to have her in my life. Every moment with her makes me feel excited for the next and I feel blessed to know that I have found my person.

Kaiya's Version: Rence and I were first introduced by our mutual friend, Marco, before our first volleyball game together as a co-ed team at Southern Adventist University. We ended up following each other on instagram afterwards which is where I first learned he was a singer. I definitely had a crush on him, but I felt like he was too popular to get to know me. I was super excited the first time he asked me to sing with his friend group. I thought to myself, “it’s finally happening…this is my in!” Buuuut after our performance ended, we both went our separate ways. I think our first true bonding experience was when we saw Endgame together in the theater with some of my friends and both cried. Like, a lot. I remember us both crying, looking at each other, and then bursting into laughter because of how ridiculous we looked. We were friends, and that was good enough for me. By the time we had made our Christmas song together (it's bad, please don't listen to it) I was content with our friendship that was built on music and the Avengers. Long story short, I ended up transferring schools and moving back to Florida. Thinking I'd never see him again, I swiped up on one of his instagram story posts on my way to class one day. From that moment on, he's had my heart. I never would have imagined that my little fangirl crush would turn into such an amazing love, but I thank God every day that it did.

Registry