Long story short… it took them a while.

Paige and Wes first met in 2013 on a college trip to New York City. Paige was thriving in her favorite city, Wes had just graduated, and neither of them had any idea this would eventually become their story. In fact, Wes was actually interested in one of Paige’s friends at the time - a small detail Paige still plans to bring up forever. While Paige was only interested in running into Leonardo DiCaprio in her favorite city - a plan she technically hasn’t given up on.

After the trip, Paige became part of Wes’s friend group, and the two started spending more and more time together. Somewhere around year two or three, during a trip to Gatlinburg, Wes apparently confessed he had feelings for Paige. Wes remembers this conversation very clearly. Paige maintains it never happened.

Over time, they became close friends first - the kind who could spend hours together doing absolutely nothing and somehow still never run out of things to talk about. Since Wes avoided driving his giant, chaotic truck whenever possible, Paige often chauffeured him around in her tiny Ford Focus hatchback. This led to what became known as “driveway time”: sitting in the car for hours after a night out, listening to music, laughing, talking, and creating an alarming number of inside jokes and terrible puns (all while the car is still running).

Eventually, those driveway conversations turned into something bigger.

Six years after they met, during one of those late-night talks, Paige nervously told Wes she liked him as more than a friend and somehow managed not to throw up in the process. Wes responded with the incredibly smooth, “Cool, I like you too.”

After that conversation, the line between “friends” and “definitely not just friends” stayed blurry for a few more weeks while Paige listened to an alarming amount of Taylor Swift and overanalyzed absolutely everything. Wes, meanwhile, was most likely completely unbothered- at least according to Paige.

Naturally, after waiting six years already, they still took a little more time before officially dating… mostly because they were terrified of ruining their friendship, which by that point was already very obviously ruined.

Then, just as they finally made things official… COVID happened.

Like many couples in 2020, a lot of their early relationship existed through phone calls, texts, and Zoom screens. But even when they couldn’t be together in person, they still spent hours talking every day - something that had always come naturally to them.

Over the next few years, they built a life around the little things: late nights talking on Paige’s apartment balcony until 4 a.m., surprise date nights, traveling together, and slowly realizing they had become each other’s favorite person.

In 2023, they moved in together, and Wes somehow convinced Paige to return to the Westside after years of swearing she would absolutely never live there again - which was probably the clearest sign of true love in the entire relationship. It was a big step that quickly became one of the best parts of their relationship. They built a home filled with all their favorite things: cuddling with their cat, half-finished puzzles permanently occupying the table, porch sitting, board game nights, Wes making Paige fabulous dinners, Paige making Wes grilled cheese, and Paige constantly finding new ways to redecorate as if she’s secretly auditioning for an HGTV show. Wes has also spent the last few years being introduced to what Paige considers “actually good TV and movies,” whether he asked for it or not.

Somewhere in all those ordinary moments, they built a life that feels pretty extraordinary to them.

Then came 2025, and a trip back to New York City.

What Paige thought was just a weekend getaway turned out to be something much bigger. One day before the trip, she got norovirus (special thanks to Paige’s nephew for apparently licking a restaurant sink), and Wes became fully convinced the proposal was cursed. Somehow, against all odds, and probably medical advice, they still made it to New York.

In Central Park, on an unusually hot and crowded day, Wes spent nearly an hour trying to find the “perfect private spot,” while acting so suspiciously distracted that Paige started wondering what his actual problem was. When they finally found a quiet place, Wes nervously pulled out the ring… and immediately dropped it. The ring bounced down a rock, both of them panicked briefly as they lunged toward the ring, and somewhere in that chaos Paige said yes.

Getting engaged in the city where they first met felt like the perfect way to begin the next chapter.

“If you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love.”

And somehow, after all those years, that’s exactly what they did.

IYKYK it was A LOT more complicated than that.