Lex + Ilum

We got engaged on January 13th, 2024 in San Diego, CA at our favorite beach Windansea. We live in Arizona so on Christmas my parents gifted our family a "surprise trip" to San Diego. Little did I know it was only a surprise for me. During the trip Ilum asked me to go on a mini date to La Jolla as everyone was doing their own thing that day but we would all meet up for dinner that night. During our date he took me to Windansea where he popped the question! We then drove to "meet up with my family for dinner" but he had another surprise in store... We got dropped off at a boat dock where we were greeted by 25 of our closest friends and family members who all traveled (from Nebraska, Colorado, Florida and Arizona) to San Diego to surprise me. We were able to celebrate with our closest people on a sunset boat ride in mission bay. Lets just say he did so good planning the most perfect day!

A little story on how we met because it is just too good to not share. In June of 2021 we happened to both go out to a bar with our friends at the same time (this was my first time going to a bar in Scottsdale). Our groups ended up sharing a table together at one of the bars. Ilum came up to me to introduce himself and shortly after he accidently spilled his whole drink on me head to toe. During conversation I found out he had just moved to Arizona from Nebraska which weirdly my whole family is from Nebraska and I have always had a connection to the state. After that night we parted ways. We didn't exchange numbers and I didnt even really know his name (Ilum is a very unique name and it was loud in the bar so when he introduced himself I couldn't understand what his name was lol). The next day I went to a Phx Suns game with my mom as I was telling her about my night I mentioned that I met a guy from Nebraska but I didn't know his name and I kid you not as those words came out of my mouth him and his friends sat in seats 3 rows in front of us. If that isn't crazy enough they didn't plan on going to the game until an hour before and those weren't even their original seats. As they were walking up to the arena they got a notification that their seats got upgraded and they were moving to a different location. After that he decided to message me on Instagram and said that he owed me a drink since he had spilled his on me the night before. We went on our first date shortly after meeting and realized we had more than we could imagine in common. We have been inseparable ever since.