“Austin and I met in Sacramento, and from the very beginning, everything between us just felt easy. One of the first moments that really stuck with me was on our third date. He asked me a bunch of random questions to get to know me better, and one of them was about my favorite snack. I mentioned ‘Chippy,’ a Filipino junk food I grew up loving, without thinking much of it. On our next date, he showed up with four different flavors he had hunted down from a random Filipino grocery store. It was such a sweet, thoughtful gesture, and it made me feel completely safe being myself around him. His proposal was just as thoughtful. He created a custom photo book filled with pictures from our time together—photos he had secretly gathered from my phone while I was sleeping. At the end of the book, he asked me to marry him. I had always joked that he wasn’t allowed to propose unless my nails were done, so he even arranged a nail and hair appointment afterward so we could take engagement photos at the park. He proposed at the same spot where we had our first date, and we ended up getting married on the anniversary of that day, which made it all come full circle. My biggest piece of advice to anyone planning a wedding is to let your friends and family help. They genuinely want to be part of it and support you. I had help from every single person in our wedding party, and even friends who weren’t officially in the party reached out to offer their time and talents. It made the whole experience feel so full of love.”
– Venea, soon to be bride
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