This is Jonathan’s perspective on his and Paige’s love story! For Paige’s answers, you can visit her site, here: www.paigelovesjonathan.com

Where It Started

&

Where It’s Going

How did you meet?

We first met on a dating app, Coffee Meets Bagel. We had a few back-and-forth messages and then knew we had to meet to see if the magic we were feeling was real.

What did you do for your first date?

Our first day was at Taste on Melrose during L.A. Restaurant week in the summer of 2017. They had good spicy margaritas (and there was good company!) but the rest of the meal itself was entirely forgettable. We bonded over our love of garlic and tasty cocktails and quickly lost track of time.

What was your first impression of Paige?

I could tell right off the bat that Paige was a passionate and intelligent person as she was telling me about her career in entertainment development and her research on the slasher genre. I could tell right away that Paige was a very fun and thoughtful person and I would have to go on another (and another and another!) date with her so I could learn even more about her.

What’s one of your most memorable moments as a couple?

Aside from the first date and proposal dates, one of our most memorable moments occurred as we were traveling to a friend’s wedding overseas. As part of the trip, we planned to spend a few days in Japan and Paige took the lead on booking our tickets, making sure we had our passports handy and inputting all the information with the airlines for international travel (pre-COVID times in case you were wondering).

We check in with the airline in LAX, get our baggage checked and have an utterly uneventful flight to Tokyo. We disembark and begin the slog through customs. Paige sails through and I get caught up with a longer check, so I wave her ahead to collect our bags as I shouldn’t be too far behind. However, turns out that the passport I had used was one I had previously declared lost prior to another trip, and the valid passport was left in my bedside table at home. Long story short, I get sent back to LA by way of Honolulu, and make three calls to make sure things go smoothly: one to secure the next flight out of LAX to Tokyo, another my dad to get my passport and bring it to me at LAX, and a third to Paige to let her know the new plan.

36 hours of travel later, I meet back up with Paige and she is full of fantastic stories! She filled me in on her whirlwind introduction to the country. First, her heroic struggle with the bags through the metro and checking into our hotel. Then she shared her adventures in the city wherein she procured a beautiful Damascus-steel chef’s knife, made a new friend while touring a modern art museum, and experienced unique and delicious street food. Her adaptability and independence (and story-telling ability as she relayed the events!) were on full display and it reaffirmed to me that Paige was someone I loved deeply and wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

What are your favorite things to do together?

We loooove to do trivia and escape rooms together. It is always fun to go in as a two-person group and see how we stack up to full teams of 6-8 people. So far, our track record in escape rooms is a-bajillion to one (and that was a fault of poor sound design making a “silent” puzzle nearly impossible to complete) and every trivia night is a roaring good time.

What’s the proposal story?

The proposal is a story in three parts: the pre-proposal, the personal-proposal, and the proper-proposal.

Our pre-proposal happened at the Hollywood Bowl during their Tchaikovsky firework extravaganza. Unfortunately, we had not secured our ring at this point, and so I made a proposal with the next best alternative: a watermelon flavored ring-pop. The personal-proposal happened a few week later at our local favorite sushi restaurant.

But most importantly, the proper proposal happened after we had finally received the ring, which we had designed together. We were at a lovely French restaurant for L.A. Restaurant week, mirroring or first date. Paige had just earlier that day gotten a manicure, and so between entrée and dessert I brought out the ring and asked her if she would marry me. Thankfully she said yes and the restaurant brought out some celebratory champagne with which we toasted over our dessert. The rest is a story we are creating together.