How it started
Taara and Brandyn met in February 2019, on a trip to Truckee. Ahead of the long weekend, Taara had tried to back out of the trip two, maybe three times. But her friend Mariya would not let Taara’s generalized anxiety stop her from going. Mariya didn’t take no for an answer, and even drove Taara up to Tahoe herself.
It was a weekend of record-breaking snowfall. When they arrived at the cabin, Mariya’s red-haired acquaintance was shoveling the driveway…
“He smiled at me as soon as I walked up to the cabin, and I felt soothed immediately. From that moment on, I wanted only to be near him and the joy he radiates.”
— Taara
“It didn’t take long after I first started talking to Taara for me to realize that she was the most honest and brave person I’d ever met. I admired her empathy and intellectualism, and I knew even before she made the first move that she was the one I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.”
— Brandyn
“P.S. Her first move was to take my water bottle and say ‘this is our water bottle now’ .”
But when Brandyn met Taara, she had been planning to leave California forever…
Taara and Brandyn started “dating” as soon as they returned to the Bay Area from Truckee. It was a rapid ascent towards lifelong unconditional love. They understood, however, that they were soon to be separated by almost 3,000 miles as Taara pursued her dream of living in New York, in the Spring of 2019.
Taara rented a van and Brandyn helped her drive most of the way across the country, knowing that soon enough he’d be helping her drive back west. Thousands of airline miles were accumulated as Taara and Brandyn traveled across the country regularly to spend time with one another.
When the pandemic became scary in early March 2020, Brandyn quickly prepared himself to fly from San Francisco to New York to make sure that wherever they had to hunker down, they would be together.
Realizing they couldn’t just add another roommate to Taara’s Brooklyn apartment, they decided to move up the plans they had made to move in together in Seattle, get a dog, and build their life together.
and, well, you know what happened next…
Brandyn proposed to Taara at a karaoke bar in New Orleans in June 2021!
