Despite neither of us being from Greenwich, Connecticut, neither of us having graduated from an elite university, neither of us working as a congressional staffer, lawyer, or investment banker, or neither of us marrying someone of the same sex, Tori and I decided to submit a wedding announcement for the New York Times. While we were not selected, I rather like the story, so our snubbed announcement will live on from the venerable pages of this blog.
Announcement
Victoria Fry and Daniel McKinnon are to be married on September 1st by Pastor Carl Walker at the Vail Interfaith Chapel in Vail, Colorado.Victoria Fry, 28, is a technical solutions executive on the named accounts team at Autodesk.
She graduated from University of Nebraska and received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.She is the daughter of Meredith and Mitch Fry of Berthoud, Colorado. Her mother spends her time cultivating the most stunning garden on the Front Range. Her father is vice president of sales and strategic alliances at Xifin.
Daniel McKinnon, 33, is a product manager on the applied AI research team at Facebook. He graduated from University of Colorado and received a BA in physics and a PhD in chemical engineering.
He is the son of Genevieve Devaud and J. Thomas McKinnon of Boulder, Colorado. His mother is a principal scientist in Boulder, Colorado at Ball Aerospace. His father is a professor emeritus at Colorado School of Mines.
About Us
Victoria and Daniel were connected by a most auspicious growth hack employed by the team responsible for The League dating app. Worried that their user base was not active enough, they sent an email out to all users informing them that they would be booted from the app if they didn’t bother to swipe by the end of the week.
Victoria took this advice to heart and managed to take a breath between trans-Pacific flights to open the app and swipe right on the first gentleman in her queue. Noticing that she actually had a lot in common with this Daniel fellow, she fired him a snarky message regarding his ski resort preferences.
Back in San Francisco, Daniel had already seen Victoria’s profile and knew she was the one. She was a chemical engineer, so he knew she was smart. She studied in Roanne, so he knew she was a francophile. She was from Nebraska, so he knew she would love Colorado. And she posted a picture atop a mast, so he knew they would sail around the world one day.
Their happenstance first date nearly didn’t happen, but by the end of it, Daniel was in love. While Victoria didn’t manage to pick up French in Rouen and had only been sailing once, he discovered that she was even better than advertised. She was funny (first date destination: a heavy metal bar nearly Haight and Ashbury), a tennis pro (Daniel was merely an aspiring amateur), and full of adventure (her second date idea involved scuba diving in Myanmar).
However, Daniel had one little problem. Just two days after their first date, he would leave San Francisco for a 10-day motorcycle trip in Colorado and Victoria would depart for four weeks in Asia before he would return. Because 6 weeks is approximately a geological epoch in the San Francisco dating scene, not five minutes after the conclusion of their first date, he asked her out again (to tennis this time).
After an even better second date in the San Francisco Marina (his hood this time), Daniel resolved to do anything to keep the flame alive. For six straight weeks, he texted Victoria his cleverest updates and most flattering pictures to keep her interested. And it worked. Within a week of her returning, the will-you-go-out-with-me words passed his lips and Victoria and Daniel became Facebook official.
Since then, they have survived nearly a week of camping in Iceland with no baggage, a move from the bustling big city of San Francisco to the burbs in Palo Alto, a sailing trip through French Polynesia during hurricane season, and the process of planning a wedding.