A Halloween Love Story

[ A kiss during our engagement session. ]

While Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, it will always hold special significance for me and my husband because it is when we officially became a couple. Since our three-year dating anniversary is tomorrow, Oct. 29, I thought I’d share the story of how we met.

[ A sign at our wedding. ]

G and I actually grew up in the same small-ish Southern California town of Simi Valley but we didn’t meet until 2001, when we were sophomores in high school. We are fairly certain our first encounter was not on campus but at the church youth group our mutual friends attended. But soon enough G was part of our close-knit circle of friends, hanging out every weekend, eating lunch together at school. I saw him all the time.

However, we never dated, which I think may be many people’s first assumption when I say we knew each other in high school. Funny enough, one of my longtime girlfriends had a huge crush on G, while I became smitten for his best friend at the time. I even went to prom with him! (Though nothing ever happened, us innocent church kids.) G, on the other hand, went to the prom with my best friend (and maid of honor)—but just as friends. Suffice to say, no one would have ever put G and I together back then.

After graduation, I went off to college (Pepperdine, not far from home) and G joined the Coast Guard, which took him to Virginia, New Jersey, Seattle and Alaska. We kind of lost touch, seeing each other once or twice when G came home to visit. As embarrassing as it is to admit, it was the power of Facebook that reconnected us, and in 2011, after Greg purchased a condo, my best friend and I decided to make a trip to San Diego to see the new place and catch up with our old friend.

[ Exploring San Diego during a Labor Day weekend getaway in 2011. ]

[ Dancing (and sweating) the night away in the Gaslamp. This is the night something changed between us. ]

It was during that Labor Day weekend getaway that we first had feelings—much to our surprise!—that we could be more than just friends. The sparks flew one night while dancing at a club. After that trip, we continued to talk for hours over Facebook messenger or on the phone, but being my insecure self, I was so nervous that he didn’t really like me (that I was making his sweet comments out to be more than they were) or that admitting my feelings could ruin the relationship.

[ A snippet from our first Facebook conversation, when we reconnected in August 2011. ]

The long-distance flirtation lasted for about two months until G journeyed from San Diego to Simi Valley to come with me and my bestie to a Halloween house party. He had invited me to SD, saying the holiday celebration down south would be “epic,” but my best friend had already committed to the house party and I was too nervous to go hang out with G by myself. So he came to me—a fact that my BFF tried to convince me did mean something.

That night, G famously dressed up as Lt. Dangle from "Reno 911!" and he helped me tweak his Coast Guard work uniform into a "sexy Coastie" costume. We were inseparable at the party and late in the night, while talking on the couch, he kissed me. And that was that. The romance became a real relationship.

[ All dressed up at the Halloween party where we had our first kiss and became a couple. ]

I’ll fast-forward the rest of the story: We dated for more than a year and a half until I finally made the move to San Diego. He proposed immediately, in June 2013 during a vacation in Maui, and we were married in La Jolla this past May.

And it all may never have happened if it wasn’t for that Halloween party three years ago. OK. I guess I like this holiday after all :)