It started in 2012 at a sorority conference in San Jose. Steph was there because it was her sorority. Isaiah was there for reasons that remain unclear. Neither of us can tell you what our first conversation was about — we've tried, and the best we've got is "something." What we do remember is that it didn't feel like a first conversation. It felt like picking up in the middle of one we'd been having for years.

We swapped numbers, which people did back then. And two people who did not, as a rule, tell anyone anything real started telling each other everything. We're still not sure why. It just seemed like the obvious thing to do.

After that we saw each other a handful of times, and in the summer of 2014 we hung out enough that you'd think something might happen. It didn't. We were, apparently, playing the long game without telling each other.

Then we didn't see each other for nine years.

We were not, however, out of touch. Steph developed a habit of calling Isaiah on her evening drives, and Isaiah developed a habit of answering — provided he hadn't already fallen asleep, which he was not always able to guarantee. Those calls went on for hours. Jobs, cities, plans, the whole thing. And it was completely platonic, which we'd like to emphasize, mostly because it's funny in hindsight.

By early 2023, Isaiah was single. Then, at long last, Steph was single. So Isaiah did what any grown adult with a law degree would do and started commenting on her Instagram stories. In April he came out and said it: he was interested. Steph was shocked. Genuinely shocked. Eleven years of being each other's person and this was, somehow, news to her.

There was one complication: Isaiah was about to move to Spain. Nevertheless, we agreed to meet up on May 5, 2023, and the moment Isaiah saw her he knew. That was it. Done.

One week later we signed a lease together in Los Angeles. We spent that summer in Berkeley, moved down to LA, and Spain quietly left the chat.

In June 2025, Isaiah planned a cruise to Alaska and asked Steph to marry him somewhere between a glacier and a buffet. She said yes. We moved to Las Vegas.

And now we'd like you to come to Italy and watch us make it official. The rest, as they say, is history — fourteen years of it, and just getting started.