Heck yes we do! Join us at our wedding reception as we kick off married life with a party to remember!

Our love story started almost 10 years ago in 2015 when both of us were attending California Lutheran University. At the time, Will was a senior and Charisse was a junior. Mutual friends brought us together over a series of gatherings across a few weeks and we found ourselves connecting through punchy one-liners. After one particular evening of lively banter and thoughtful exchanges, we felt like we'd never run out of things to talk about with each other. After that night, we were inseparable as we spent every possible moment together to get to know each other. We discovered that we shared a psychology class in our class schedule and we enjoyed messing up the unspoken seating chart to sit together. A few days after we decided what our song would be if we were together (Outlaws by Alessia Cara), we made it official on November 21. Now, because it was so long ago, we don't remember if our first date happened before or after that date but for the record, Will did ask Charisse out to dinner for the first date. We enjoyed eating pizzas and pizookies together at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse in Westlake Village.

In 2016, Will graduated from Cal Lutheran and Charisse followed suit in 2017. We navigated post-grad life together, experiencing all of life's natural ups and downs together. Will was lucky with work and immediately met the ophthalmologist who offered Will a job. Will has since worked his way up to senior operations manager for this small business that manufactures medical equipment for surgical training. Charisse found work with children as a 'parent & me' teacher for littles under 5 years old and then in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis as a behavior technician to support children with disabilities and their families. Outside of work, we learned more about each other through countless game and movie nights, by traveling together all over California, and over many slices of pizza and scoops of ice cream. The idea that "opposites attract" could not be more true when we first got together. Charisse likes to be empathetic, sociable, compassionate, and conscientious while Will likes to be independent, decisive, logical, and witty. While all wonderful characteristics, we learned that Will needs to share at least one bite of every tasty treat, and Charisse needs to honestly speak up when picking what movie to watch together. In 2018, we moved into our first home together in Newbury Park and we have loved living in this location ever since. Also, at that time, Charisse started a master's program and finished that program right as the pandemic started. When transitioning to the work-from-home life, we decided that it was the perfect time to start our family. So, we adopted our senior rescue pitty pup, Buddy ♡ #DINKWAD

On this day, we decided to recreate our first-anniversary date, which was spending the day at The Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens in San Marino. We arrived at the gardens suspiciously close to golden hour and uncharacteristically, Will suggested that we stroll immediately to the Chinese Garden. Following his lead, we walked straight to that area of the gardens and as the crowd cleared, Will paused to get down on one knee and asked Charisse to marry him. In the passion of the moment, we both have no memory of what was said to each other at that time so it was incredibly thoughtful of Will to have hired a photographer to capture the moment for us. We privately celebrated the start of our engagement together with Buddy for the night before sharing the joy with the world the next day. Thank you for taking the time to read the first part of our story. We deeply appreciate all of your love and constant support of our journey on our timeline. We choose to get married now as we embark on new challenges and adventures together as husband and wife, partners in crime, best friends, and confidants. We cannot wait to celebrate the next chapter of our story with all our cherished friends and family!