Natalia and Ais performed on the same night at the San Francisco Queer Open Mic years ago at the Modern Times Bookstore in the Mission. Post song and poem performances, years passed as acquaintances. On a rainy day in the Lower Haight, they found each other crammed on the 7 bus and getting off at the same stop: Natalia going to band practice and Ais going to build an instrument. The short ride and walk further revealed their similarities and passions for music and art and lead to one awkward date in the middle of Natalia's work day at the Ferry Building. Ais returned to the Bay Area after a year in Alaska and bought two tickets to a poetry performance by acclaimed writer and performer An(drea) Gibson at the Great American Music Hall. In scrambling to find a poetry lover to attend, Natalia agreed and finally the time was right to meet more than every few years; They had collaborating to do, from music, to art, to life!

As the special people in our lives, you all need to know that we are not two brides. Ais does not fit within the binary genders of "he" or "she"; they (Ais) refer to themself using the singular pronoun "they" because Ais is a non-binary trans person. We ask that you all please use the pronouns they/them/their when referring to Ais. Although you may not fully understand this, we hope that you can understand that gendering Ais neutrally makes them feel respected, loved, and understood. If you are hearing this for the first time, we hope you hear it with love, as you all are our closest people. We encourage talking about gender difference openly and we hope you approach the topics with consideration. A wedding wish for them (Ais) is to be gendered by everyone at the wedding in the way that reflects who they (Ais) are. We appreciate your efforts and hope that they continue after the celebration.

In SF, we lived 6 blocks apart, both 1 of 5 people in our apartments Van Morrison's song Wavelength is our alarm clock tune We LOVE Sushi, especially unagi (Eel!) We want to have many animals, including a goat we name Asphalt Aspiring to learn: sign language, Spanish & French, tree & mushroom identification We both like getting fancy! We both have Aunt Corinne's (one Core-een, one Coh-rin) Ais is Gryffindor (Duh!), team Jacob, and Elle Woods Natalia is Ravenclaw, Team Edward and 3rd Rock from the Sun We read out loud to each other every night before bed PCT 2021 Ais went into heavy negotiations over garage sale baskets that turned into weeks of emails (and no baskets), and only found out the woman was Natalia's Aunt months later when Natalia & Ais rode by the house on bikes and Tals pointed to her Aunts house