a little bit of fate, a little bit of angela
our story began at nineteen, at our friend angela’s birthday party, in a ghetto nightclub in vancouver you might know - fortune.
we met, we talked, and somehow spent the entire night inseparable. the chemistry was undeniable, but the timing wasn’t quite right yet. so, nothing happened. we went our separate ways, and for the next year, remained nothing more than familiar faces on each other’s instagram.
but neither of us quite forgot the other.
a year later, another round of angela’s birthday brought us back into each other’s orbit. this time, we were both single, and unbeknownst to one another, had each been quietly checking the guest list, hoping to see the other’s name.
when the night finally came, one look across the room was all it took.
it sound terribly cliche, but for a moment, the crowded room seemed to disappear. we found our way to each other as though picking up a conversation we’d left unfinished a year before.
we spent the night laughing, drinking, and dancing. and somewhere in the drunken night, tom kissed jacqueline. and that was the beginning of everything.
finding our way
—
tom, considerably shyer when sober, took his time finding his courage. fortunately, angela was more than happy to help, frequently arranging group outings only to conveniently disappear and leave us alone.
eventually, tom took jacqueline to their favourite spot by the beach to ask her to be his girlfriend. only he was so nervous that he accidentally asked he to be his boyfriend instead.
she said yes anyway.
tom once insisted he needed plenty of personal space and didn’t want to see each other every day. as it turns out, he was the one making plans every single day. from the moment jacqueline said yes to being tom’s boyfriend until the day they moved in together, not a day went by that they didn’t see each other.
some things, it seems, are simply beyond their control.
a love built in the everyday
our story began with chemistry at first sight. that inexplicable feeling that someone is different, yet somehow destined to be connected to you.
but love, we learned, is something much quieter, and infinitely greater.
it’s in the light tom left on for jacq at the end of a long day. in waking up to breakfast already made. in cooking dinner together, in looking across the kitchen one ordinary afternoon and suddenly being able to picture an entire lifetime.
it’s in building a home, welcoming creama into our lives, and discovering that the smallest member of our family could turn two once-spontaneous people into homebodies.
it’s in growing up together, learning to navigate adulthood, building a business, chasing dreams, changing directions, and figuring things out along the way together.
we couldn’t be more different in some ways. jacqueline is ambitious, outspoken, and a little chaotic. tom is grounded, patience, and steady.
where one dreams a little too big, the other finds a way to make it happen. where one cooks, the other cleans. and somehow, our differences have always made us better together.
we have learned that love isn’t about never disagreeing, or always getting everything right.
it’s about growing alongside one another, learning to understand each other better, and choosing the same person through every version of life.
and even after all these years, behind closed doors, we are still two teenagers who can make each other laugh until we can hardly breath. and to us, that’s the whole point.
here’s to the life we’ve built, the people we’ve become, and all the years still to come.
with love,
jacqueline & tom
