Our Story

            All those we invited to our wedding come from different stages of our lives, and have known us separately across many years and continents. Yet, this day comes as little surprise to many of you, who had to hear us talk about each other over those same years. We are very excited to share this special day with you, one my soon to be wife has been planning meticulously while juggling work and moving to a new country. She is an amazing woman. So, when Marianna asked me to write our story as one of my only wedding tasks, I knew I risked turning this section of her beautiful website into a tired cliché. You can all undoubtedly point to a time in this story where you were present, which I hope makes this interesting and dare I say, even amusing. At least, as a favor to the groom, that’s what I hope you tell the bride.

            We met in a Miami high school 12 years ago. We were both the new kids in class and quickly became what Marianna calls “best friends”. I can assure you friendship was never my intention. Luckily for me, we both fell in love soon after. I say luckily because our window of opportunity was very short, after only a few months, my family and I had to move back to South America. To two teenagers in love, this seemed like the end of the world. We knew a long-distance relationship at that age was an impossibility, so we decided to not force anything. Despite the distance, we spoke often, but never again under the guise of friendship.

            I went on to study in Germany, while Marianna moved to Sarasota, Florida to do the same. At the end of our freshman year, I saw an opportunity at a travel agency I couldn’t pass by. My visa to the US was expired so I couldn’t visit her there, but there were unbelievably cheap tickets to the Bahamas. I called her, ticket in hand, to pitch the plan. We were both on a plane within the week. Now, I have to admit my parents are finding out about this little adventure as they read this. To them, I just want to say I made welfare check calls to my sisters every day. You’ll be happy to know they’ve been aiding and abetting this relationship since I was 18.

Marianna and I met in the Bahamas two years to the day after last seeing each other, and had an amazing 4 days together. We said our bittersweet goodbyes at the airport and went back to our respective lives. We kept talking as we usually did, and it took a little over two years for another opportunity to meet to present itself. 

            Going into our senior year of college in 2015, Marianna spent the summer in Florence taking art classes. We were able to spend a lot of time together for the first time. I visited her in Florence where we drove around Tuscany, a trip we will recreate for our honeymoon. She visited in Hamburg where she met many of my friends that will be present in Croatia. I also joined my future in-laws for a short vacation in Hungary. After reconnecting during the summer, I visited her in Sarasota and officially started dating for the first time in October. This kicked off our first year in a long-distance relationship.

            After graduating, I started a post-graduate program in Boston as Marianna did the same in Miami. This made distance a lot more manageable, and things were going great. Once our programs were completed, I moved to New York at the end of 2017, and Marianna joined me at the beginning of 2018. After knowing each other for 8 years, we were finally living in the same place. We quickly found out that relationships gain a few layers of complexity once you’re not having them over the phone. By the end of 2018 I was offered a job in Greece and we were forced to end things once again. I can tell you that saying goodbye to Marianna outside her Brooklyn apartment before heading to the airport was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever had to do. We didn’t know if we would see each other again, but we both had some growing to do.

            We tried to keep talking as we usually did but it ultimately weighed too heavily on us. Marianna told me we should keep some distance, and we didn’t speak a word to each other for more than three months. This might not seem like much, but it is still the longest we have gone without talking since we met in 2010. After some months, we slowly started reconnecting, and I was sent to work to the New York office for a few weeks. We had not seen each other for more than a year at this point, but after discussing how much we had missed each other, we decided to get back together.

            Going into a long-distance relationship from New York to Athens doesn’t seem very smart, but among all of the bad things about the 2020 pandemic, it gave us another opportunity. Marianna was working from home and came to live with me in Greece for an entire summer. We spent it hopping the nearly empty islands and talking about how we had gone wrong in New York. It was this summer that I felt we were both ready to get married. In October of 2020, I moved back to Bolivia.

            Marianna visited me a few times, we both had to be sure this was a place we could live. Thankfully, Marianna enjoyed it even more than I expected, and by 2021 I was looking for a ring. We took a trip to the mountains in Sao Paulo and on September 16, 2021, after talking to her father, I got down on one knee. We are going to get married exactly one year after that day.

            Our story has had more than a few twists and turns, and we are excited to share this special day with all of you, one we have seen coming from far away for many years. To those that will be attending, I just want to let you know that we won’t be celebrating the end of the story you just read. Rather, we will be celebrating the beginning of a much longer one.