If you know us, you know how much we love telling this story - each of us chiming in at the right moment, adding in all the little details that the other might leave out. It really is better told in person over a couple martinis, but we'll leave it here for you to read in case you're curious.

Well, we met online, as a few romances do these days. Rachel had mostly pictures of clouds on her profile, Moch had the sensitivity to notice. And then we spent two months getting to know each other from a distance. Moch in Nashville, Rachel in New York (and also in Portland for a month to meet her niece).

After long nights of phone calls and texting all day, we finally met in person in February 2022. Our first date was at MOMA PS1 and even though we had spent hours on the phone talking, first date nerves were ever present. A walk over the bridge back to Greenpoint to a local favorite, Achilles' Heel (RIP), for a glass of wine we finally started to ease up just in time for Moch to have to go meet his friends for dinner. We had our second date the very next night at Rule of Thirds and that was that. Moch went back to Nashville, and we left at it "Let's see what happens next."

Over the next year, we flew to see each other for long weekends, then for weeklong stays. Then, in April over her birthday Moch asked Rachel to drive to Ojai with him in August. We met in New Orleans, and roadtripped and camped along the way, in some of the most beautiful places we had ever seen, making one pivotal stop just outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. That camp spot is our favorite place in the world now, for many mystical reasons. You'll hear us joke that that first night in August of 2022 at S P Crater, while surrounded by howling coyotes, we were abducted by aliens. But it was clear to both of us that something significant shifted that night, and then three years later it was same place Moch proposed to Rachel in the midst of a great storm at the top of the Crater. (A moment for a little history - the crater was named "Shit Pot" by a rancher in the late 19th century for it's resemblance to an overturned chamber pot - romantic!)

We never cease to be in awe of how lucky we are, how so many things about our relationship and our experiences together feel like kismet. We can't wait to celebrate love and luck and life with you all in August.