Our Story
The story of us, as told by Dominic —
Felicia tells me that people will actually read this story instead of just looking at the date of our wedding and picking some food options. So, this is for you that like a little bit of color and context before selecting your entree option.
I don’t know if Felicia remembers it, but I clearly remember the first day that we met.
I was a lender helping host some new construction condos in the Jingle Town neighborhood of Oakland. Now, no one really wants to talk to the lender on these tours, because they’re there to look at housing options for their clients and not talk to a boring mortgage guy.
This is why Felicia stood out to me.
In she walked with a big friendly smile on her face (if you know her, you know what I’m talking about) immediately saying hello and introducing herself. How open, smiley, and friendly she was really stood out because it was atypical from everyone else that had walked through. She immediately made an impression on me. I remember looking at her business card she left behind, and wanting to know just who she was.
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A while later, we ended up meeting through her brokerage and found out she was working on getting her license to become a realtor herself. How happy and friendly she was all of a sudden made sense to me, she wasn’t a Realtor yet so she was still friendly and full of life! I had also recently started in the business and was begging to get more established. I had a group of other young professionals that hung out and worked together, so I invited Felicia to meet the group at Temescal Brewing. She fit in immediately.
Before long, we were socializing together, working, going to work events all together, and while our group friendship flourished, our individual friendship did as well. After about 6 months of spending every week together in some capacity or another, we both ended up being single at the same time and I knew I had to capitalize on the opportunity. While away on a trip out of the country, I let Felicia know that when I got back to the states that I would be asking her out on an official date. If she didn’t want to go, she had 2 weeks before I was back to work on her excuses to tell me no. To my surprise, she didn’t make up any excuses to get out of going on a date with me.
I’ll go ahead and brag a little bit, but after that first date I believe her first words were something along the lines of “I don’t want your big head to get any bigger, but that was the best first date I’ve ever been on”. We’ve been a pretty darn good match since day one.
We only dated causally for a few months, as we both recently ended longer relationships. We were both a little guarded and not fully opening ourselves up to each other. After a few months of dating, we decided that we’d go back to being friends. It’s a little surreal looking back at it, but it definitely felt like the best choice for us at the time. I’d like to think we did a pretty good job of maintaining our friendship.
After more than a year of each of us exploring other options out there, we slowly worked our way back to each other romantically. I can’t speak for her, but I can definitely speak for myself as to why. In being friends with, and in dating Felicia, I had so much fun and felt so comfortable. She was then the barometer from which I measured every other person I dated, and none of them came close to how special Felicia made me feel and how easy of a time we had being ourselves together.
It sounded like she may have felt the same way, because we had spent some time together and talked a bit about trying to date again. But this time, if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right and go all in. We decided to grab dinner together at Marica on College Ave and talk about giving things a second go. I already had my mind made up that I wanted to leave there with her as my girlfriend, and that our sit down was just a formality. We left that dinner together as a couple.
Balancing work, fun, and play together came naturally to us. We were already great friends and colleagues, so it was an easy and fast transition into true partners. I then decided to book a trip to Italy to take Felicia there for the first time. I warned her that I look really cool in Italy and that if she wasn’t careful that she’d fall in love if she hadn’t already. She laughed it off, like me being cool was an impossible thing. When we got to Italy though, heard me speak the language, take her to my favorite spots, and navigate a foreign country confidently, she admitted that she wasn’t ready for how cool I looked. That trip is when I told her that I loved her, and she reciprocated the sentiment. For our first big trip together, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Once back home we got back to work, energized by our confessions of love and a trip that had us in a whirlwind of excitement together. And then, not much longer after our return COVID decided to make its introduction to the world.
The next 6 months we spent a lot of time together, sheltering in place was actually a pleasure for us. We played games, went on walks, ate, laughed, worked, and just stayed in our little bubble of bliss as the world felt like it was on pause. It was almost like a time warp, spending that much time together was like having a relationship in dog years. While the calendar may have said that not much time had passed, we felt like we had been together forever (but, you know, in a good way).
With us being so content and sure of our future together, we decided to buy a home and start an official life together in Martinez. Our cute little home was ours to call our own. Not long after we moved at the end of 2020, I purchased an engagement ring. If the house together wasn’t enough to tie Felicia down, then the ring definitely would be.
The next half a year was a bit of a struggle for us both. Not in our relationship, but in our work life. COVID had put the housing market into a difficult surge of demand with a ton of restrictions that made any semblance of a normal working life disappear. This took an emotional toll on both Felicia and I. Thankfully we had each other and we were both in the same industry and could understand and sympathize with the struggles of work that seemed to be never ending. With being stuck at home, and work consuming all of our lives, proposing seemed a little inopportune.
Thankfully, the opportunity eventually presented itself! We had a trip to Sicily for a wedding of very close friends. Finally, we would be away from work, out of the house, and in a new and exciting place. The ring I had been sitting on for months was finally going to be on the hand it was meant for.
On a romantic island off the coast of Sicily, somehow I fought through nerves, anxiety driven tummy aches, unbearable heat, and proposed. I don’t remember what I said, even though I had planned out everything I wanted to tell her for months. When I got down on one knee, it all went foggy and I stumbled through some sort of words and I guess that somewhere in that nervous panic I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.
For the last year, we’ve got to spend time together as an engaged couple. We’ve invested in our future together with adding a bit more real estate to our portfolio, and are super excited to officially tie the knot and start our family together.
In thinking of our future together, we wanted to keep our wedding small so that we can begin working on building the life we dream of together for each other, and our future children. We are excited to share this special day with the people closest to us, and we really hope that you can share in our excitement and love together.
Our big day isn’t far away, and although I’ll be focused on Felicia that day I’ll still love it if you came.
See you September 10.
