Jonathan had more than just a relaxing vacation with his family after graduating from his Master's program at USC back in 2019. He matched with Anjali on Hinge ('Designed to be Deleted' (TM pending)), and proceeded to set up a date for when he arrived back on the mainland. Anjali cracked some initial jokes, making Jonathan literally laugh out loud in the airport boarding line, and the rest is history!

After Jonathan and Anjali's first date at the bowling alley in Alhambra, and an extended date of dinner at a Chinese restaurant next door to talk more--since they will tell you, bowling is not an ideal first date since someone is always up to bowl, so you ask a question, and then immediately walk away--Jonathan asked for Anjali's number, so they could communicate via text instead of through the Hinge app. Anjali gave him her phone for him to add his information, and as he was about to walk to his car he realized he had given her the wrong number--his parents home number (an easy one to just have memorized). They laughed it off, and then Jonathan proceeded to "fix" his mistake. When Anjali got in her car, she texted Jonathan right away (a good sign) with her full name for his contact, because who just wants to be "Anjali Hinge"? Immediately after, she received a text message saying that she had tried to contact a landline! Luckily Anjali did not take this as a sign of Jonathan trying to get rid of her, so she messaged him on Hinge again and provided her phone number instead. Could have saved some time if she had just given it to Jonathan to begin with, but then they wouldn't have had this funny story!

It was no surprise that Anjali and Jonathan would be engaged before the end of 2023. They had already looked at rings together, and now Jonathan just had to secure the goods, and figure out a way to surprise Anjali in the moment. While Jonathan was back in Colorado in September for his dad's birthday, he visited some jewelers with his mom--who actually used to work for a jeweler--and learned all about the 4 C's. They selected a stone based on these characteristics, but the ring needed to be made and shipped. Jonathan waited for it to arrive back in California, and was cunning enough to have it shipped to his work address so there would be no chance of Anjali seeing it. After their friends Jake and Madi moved to the East Side, and had a housewarming party in October, Jonathan found the perfect opportunity to chat with Jake and ask him to send a group text, requesting we all hang out. Jake pulled through at the beginning of November with the request, and as most adult friendships do, it took us over a week to get ourselves coordinated enough to finalize plans. Since it was November, and would get dark super early, Jonathan suggested we do an early dinner at one of his favorite restaurants "Rock N Fish" in Manhattan Beach. If you know Jonathan, you'll know early dinner is not the norm, so hearing 5:15pm as a reservation time was crazy for Anjali, but she agreed if they were going to make it all the way to the West Side and be near the beach, she wanted to see the beach, so she suggested to get there even earlier in order to watch the sunset. A perfect plan...now it was her idea, so she couldn't be suspicious, could she?! Anjali had a feeling an engagement might happen when Jonathan and her were in Colorado for Thanksgiving--since there were only a few weeks left in the year anyways--so she prepared and got her nails done just in case. She happened to book her nail appointment for the morning of 11/18--the same day they were going to dinner in Manhattan Beach! Jonathan had been asked if Anjali was onto him at all, and he had said 'no!' but was given a warning that if Anjali did her nails, then she knew, so when she off-handedly mentioned she was going to get her nails done, he asked her "why??" This was a little odd, and Anjali was not going to say "cuz you might pop the question in a few days," but this intrigue did stir a little question for her. It had been raining earlier in the day, but luckily there were just some pretty clouds left over from the storm. We all walked down towards the Pier and Jake asked if we wanted to walk on the beach or the Pier. Anjali suggested the Pier, because it was so cute and already decorated for Christmas. Jake quickly turned things around and strongly suggested he wanted to walk on the beach, so we did that instead, even though walking on wet sand seemed like an odd choice. After walking a ways out, Madi asked for a photo of her and Jake with the Pier and the clouds in the back. Anjali loves to take photos of people--and will even ask random strangers taking selfies if they want a non-selfie version of them when she's out and about--so she gladly took some pictures of them. As Anjali was giving Madi's phone back, Jonathan requested we take some photos together as well. This was out of the ordinary for him, but Anjali was happy to oblige. After a small kerfuffle of which side to stand on--since Anjali was not aware she needed to be on a specific side since Jonathan was hiding the ring box in his pocket this whole time--they posed for some photos, and it all happened very quickly, but Jonathan got down on one knee and asked Anjali if she'd marry him! She responded "Of course I will!" and almost proceeded to take the ring out of the box herself (see laughing photo in Gallery). After letting Jonathan place the ring on her finger, they proceeded to take some cute photos on the Pier, and then headed to the restaurant for their scheduled dinner--now not just your ordinary double date!