Bea swears she’d seen Mark before.

Years before Bumble, before quarantine, before everything, there was a fleeting moment at a 2016 Music Alive festival. Bea remembers a choir with mismatched ties. Later, she’d realize it was Mark’s.

Somehow, despite living in Markham their whole lives, their paths brushed, but never quite crossed.

Yet, as the tired phrase goes, everything changed after the pandemic.

In 2020, somewhere between global chaos, lockdowns, and late-night scrolling, Bea and Mark found each other on Bumble, bonding over a shared love for musicals. Not long after, they met at a park to play socially-distanced volleyball with friends.

The next few years passed in a blur.

During quarantine, they went on dates through Animal Crossing and Pokémon. They took long drives in Bea’s Kia Soul searching for new food spots around Toronto, spent Christmases and karaoke nights with Bea’s family, and made countless trips to Niagara Falls and Mandarin with Mark’s family. They also gave each other an absurd amount of plushies.

Meanwhile, life kept moving forward: graduations, first jobs, adopting Luna, new homes, and new seasons of life together.

In 2024, Mark brought their story full circle, proposing at the very same park where they first met.

By 2025, they were married.

By 2026, they had moved into their first home in Pickering with their now 5-year-old mini poodle, Luna.

These days, not much has changed. They still go on food adventures, still love cute things, and still spend most of their time side by side (now playing Pokopia together, with their favourite plushies displayed around their home).

Over the years, all those ordinary little moments turned them into happier, softer, better versions of themselves — their upcoming wedding is really just a celebration of that life they’ve been building together all along.