Matching

Sarah and Morgan met on two dating apps, Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB), and Hinge.

For those unfamiliar with the apps, CMB offers an in-app currency called "Beans" which women earn daily and can "spend" to talk to potential matches -- the idea is to create more thoughtful connections because you are only allotted so many beans to talk to so many people per day.

Sarah sent an initial message to Morgan on CMB, he replied to the message in a separate app, Hinge, to which Sarah responded, "Wow, I can't believe you made me waste beans to talk to you".

And from there, Morgan's attention was grabbed.

Meeting

Morgan and Sarah arranged to have their first date on December 30th, 2020. Initially, they had planned to meet in person, but Sarah had spent the holidays with her family in SoCal, and when she returned to SJC, she was handed a piece of paper advising she stay home/away from people for 10 days. Sarah shared a photo of the paper with Morgan and the two agreed to change their date from an in-person meetup to a Zoom one.

When the date arrived, Sarah curled her hair, applied makeup, put on a cute satin blue top, and a white tulle skirt (he couldn't see the skirt but she refused to be half dressed). Morgan showed up in a Soaring over CA t-shirt and some jeans. First-impression wise, he felt very underdressed. But hey, that's zoom dating for you. :)

Nevertheless, the conversation really flowed and the pair had a good enough time to decide to continue dating.

The first date

Morgan's plan for a first date was to take Sarah on a picnic in Downtown Los Gatos. He ordered food for them from his favorite breakfast spot, the Los Gatos cafe.

They took the food to a nearby park and Morgan set out a Nightmare Before Christmas blanket for them to sit on. Only to very quickly find out that Sarah doesn't actually enjoy breakfast food.

Not only that, but post picnic Morgan wanted to take Sarah for a tour of the very cute quaint and adorable Downtown Los Gatos, only to learn that Sarah had been working in Downtown Los Gatos for 3 years and ended up knowing the area even better than him.

And so, they decided to trek into the nearby neighborhood to look at the multi-million dollar homes in the area. Since neither of them knew this part of Los Gatos as well, they didn't realize that they would end up finding themselves trekking up a ridiculously steep heel, while Sarah was in heels. :)

Despite all of that, Sarah and Morgan had really incredible conversations where they learned more about each other and discovered how similar their views, lifestyles, and dreams of the future aligned.

Dating

When Sarah and Morgan first matched, they were both living in San Jose, but as soon as they decided to pursue dating, they learned that Morgan would have to return to UC Merced for 6 months to complete his PhD. Sarah and Morgan spent that first 6 months trading off weekends in SJ or Merced, and when the 6 months finally came to an end, Morgan's PhD advisor asked him to stay in Merced for another 6 months...

After having already invested the initial 6 months, Sarah decided she might as well invest in another half a year. :)

Living together

Morgan completed his PhD in December 2022 and he could finally leave Merced. After two awesome years together, Sarah twisted Morgan's arm and convinced him to move in with her in her Condo in San Jose.

About one year later, they upgraded to their forever home in Sunnyvale where they have been happily living since June 2023.

Getting married

Sarah always dreamed that her wedding would include mouse ears, so she was thrilled to find that Morgan was NOT against it, but rather very much on board with the idea!

Thinking that a wedding at a Disney property would be out of reach, they decided to tour them mostly for fun anyway. However, they immediately fell even more in love with the venue than they could have imagined. They decided right there and then that they did not need to consider any other venues and this is where they were going to get married.

And so, we invite you our friends and family, to join us in starting this next chapter of our lives. <3

Can't wait to see you there!