Love is strange in that you can't fight it or deny it even if you tried. If it's meant to be, then it will happen. This holds true for our story.

Although we only met each other for the first time in February 2023, we have quite a few different connections prior to us meeting, dating back to a time even before we were born as our parents knew each other from over 40 years ago. The other connection is that we both know Nancy. Nancy is Lillian's cousin and she has known Steve since they were kids.

Nancy had tried to match us together a couple years before we officially met, however we both declined as we thought it was awkward to be set up. Apparently, there were a few different events that we were both in attendance, but somehow we always missed meeting each other. Then our parents ran into each other again after roughly 40 years later at Nancy's sister chi Trang's wedding and our dads were intent on matching us together. Nancy was once again asked to set us up, however, we both declined again. It took another year and some more effort before Nancy and others were able to get us to meet during a get-together at Nancy's house on February 11th 2023. And well... as expected it was awkward. We both felt like fishes in a tank being watched. So obviously it wasn't love at first sight and there weren't sparks that night. We didn't even really say one word to each other but there were some stolen glances and Steve thought Lillian was cute. The next day Steve got Lillian's number from Nancy and well... from that day until now, there hasn't been a day that we did not text or talk to each other. We learned quickly that our personalities meshed well together and that we shared the same values in life. Although we are both guarded when it comes to relationships, we both let our guards down and open our hearts up for each other. It's allowed us to fall completely in love with one another and it has gotten us to this point today.

We had our first date on a rainy Friday afternoon after texting and talking for about two weeks. The first date was short and didn't go as planned because we were both so nervous. However, our second date was a 14 hour date filled with endless conversations where we spent the entire day exploring San Diego and ended our night watching fireworks at Disneyland. We both have never felt such a strong and deep connection that was so effortlessly easy to form towards someone like that before. The very next day we both knew we wanted to continue developing this connection and became an official couple on March 5th. We did things that many people including ourselves didn't expect us to do, mostly because everything happened so fast. We traveled to Quebec only after dating for 3 months. We had such a great time on our trip, taking hundreds of pictures and becoming experts at taking selfies. Somewhere along this trip Lillian realized that Steve was the one she wants to make all her memories with and for Steve, well he already knew that Lillian was the one after their second date. Although we've only known each other for a short time, we both felt like we've known each other our entire lives. It was on this trip that we seriously discussed our future together and talked of marriage. We couldn't wait to plan more adventures together!

So then in October, we embarked on our next adventure to Greece and spent some time in Athens and Santorini. Unbeknownst to Lillian, Steve had planned to propose on this trip months in advance and on October 9th 2023, on the patio balcony looking out at the Aegean sea as the sun was setting, Steve nervously popped the question and Lillian said YES!

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