How we got here

the beginning

Two strangers, one new city

We arrived in Los Angeles the very same week — two people who didn't yet know each other, quietly starting over in the same enormous, sprawling city. A few days later, a little app called Bumble decided to introduce us.

We've since lost those first messages to the great digital void, which feels about right; the conversation that mattered was always going to be the one in person. That came at the Original Farmers Market, over something to eat and a great deal of talking. We liked each other immediately, and we liked that corner of the city even more for having brought us together.

For the better part of that first year, the Farmers Market and the Grove next door became our whole world — a standing excuse to wander, to try one more restaurant, to lose an afternoon in a museum and call it a date. Some places hold on to you. That one held on to us.

somewhere in the middle

The years in between

The first I love you arrived on a clear night in Newport Beach, where we'd gone to celebrate Baillie's birthday. It was said under a sky full of stars, and — to the great relief of the one who said it first — it was said right back.

Since then we've collected the kind of trips you keep telling people about. An epic weekend in Joshua Tree, hiking the trails by day and watching the desert give up the most ridiculous sunsets by night. And a stretch of Croatia with Baillie's family — some of the best meals of our lives, and slow days sailing the tranquil little islands and villages south of Split.

the question

The proposal

Will planned an entire day of our favorite things — and, because he knows Baillie, he programmed each stop into the GPS the night before as nothing but coordinates, so there was no peeking ahead. She spent the day pleasantly, completely in the dark.

It began with a breakfast walk to Larchmont and ended, much later, somewhere far quieter. In between, it passed — not at all by accident — right back through the Original Farmers Market, where the whole thing had started years before.

1. Noah's Bagels, Larchmont A breakfast walk to start the day
2. The Petersen A museum morning
3. The Original Farmers Market A snack, where it all began
4. Santa Monica Brew Works And a little of the Eagles game
5. A trailhead in Topanga A mystery drive, then a hike to a secluded spot — and the question
6. Tar & Roses Dinner, as a newly engaged pair

At the top of that quiet trail, with the light going golden and the city laid out far below, Will asked. Baillie said yes — and then, a beat later, finally got to look at the photos.