IN WORDS
Jamie and Tanika had lived at the same residential college for over six months before encountering one another. Known as something of a Big Name on Campus (at least to Barely-Left-her-Dorm Tanika), Jamie held as much appeal to his now soon-to-be-wife as a post-PA's pepperoni slice from Inty's (iykyk). All that changed one winter's evening when this unlikely pair found themselves seated across from one another at a nondescript college supper.
Following an hours-long debate spanning politics, religion, culture, and theology (the likes of which would have made a betting man place his odds on wedding bells in the future and a more prudent man think twice about the whole, you know, not-living-in-the-same-city-for-seven-years hitch), Jamie and Tanika found themselves in uncertain, unchartered, and unwelcome territory.
But! Innocent and youthful, they persisted.
Since that fated debate (from which - like every debate since - Tanika emerged victorious), Jamie and Tanika's relationship has spanned the industrialist coffee houses of Melbourne, the rustic moors of Edinburgh, the busy streets of New York, the cobblestoned lanes of Luxembourg, the historic palaces of London, and the would-resurrect-Louis-XIV-from-the-dead buffet brunches of Dubai. (No, but, seriously, what is going on at Saffron?!)
To the confused onlooker, Jamie and Tanika make as little sense on paper as they do in person. Indeed, over the years, the 14-hour flights have left plenty of time for heated ("What do you mean you don't like haggis?!") and not-so (aka also) heated ("What do you mean you want to tell people we holidayed together 98 months into the relationship?!") cultural conversations, too.
But! Although older and less youthful, they still persisted.
Why? Well, insanity, mostly.
But also because, for Tanika, nothing makes life worth living quite like the sound of Jamie yelling at a TV for 90 minutes every Saturday during football season. And could Jamie even function without Tanika's counsel on K-beauty brands? Unlikely. Not to mention that together, they have kept every moules-frites eatery across Western Europe in business these past eight years.
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Between the geographical distances and cultural differences, life for this unlikely pair has not always been rosy. But thanks to a rock-solid support system, a commitment to innocent, youthful companionship, and an undeserved abundance of blessings from above, everything has ultimately come up roses.