How We Met
Matt and Lyka began exchanging messages in late 2023 on a dating app called Hinge. Lyka had recently returned to Dallas from London, and Matt had recently moved to Dallas from the Northeast, having even more recently decided to stay for a while. Matt had never tried to meet people online and had only been on the app for two weeks when Lyka first reached out. The snarky profile had achieved its intended goal. Lyka was the first (and only) date he would arrange on the platform.
Their first date was at a coffee shop on New Year's Day 2024. It was a 45-minute drive for Matt, and late enough in the day that the caffeine would, in fact, keep him up all night. They ended up talking for hours, trading stories about cooking, travel, and, characteristically, fun facts and conspiracy theories. It was a match made in heaven. Their different personalities showed through from the beginning, but they complemented each other well. Matt is collected and calm (he would say cool), but witty, genuine, and honest; Lyka is worldly, outgoing, affable, and, well, not quiet ;)
Early that year, they began dating, initially seeing one another only on weekends. Memorable early dates included a hike they now repeat yearly that Lyka had no idea would be 12 miles long; a one-on-one Super Bowl party; a home-cooked meal at Matt's house, complete with a Steve Martin movie; a trip to a hip sushi restaurant; and a day hike in Oklahoma, after which Matt perfectly grilled a ribeye steak for the first time in his life. Their first kiss followed a nice dinner and a night at a jazz bar called The Balcony.
For Lent that year, they challenged each other to eat one meal per day. To this day, they still debate if bananas count as a meal. By Easter, they were spending full three-day weekends together, cooking, going to church, and finding ways to fit each other into their otherwise full work, study, and travel schedules. They began getting more ambitious and taking longer trips: renting a cabin for a birthday weekend, meeting family members, and driving from Las Vegas to Dallas via several national parks. Soon, they were meeting multiple times a week to share meals and struggling to surprise each other with new and unique desserts.
They traveled together even more, going to Rome for a friend's wedding, a trip they extended to include Switzerland and a short jaunt in Finland. Matt visited the Philippines for the first time; they met Lyka's newest family member in Canada a few months later; and they attended another close friend's wedding in London the next year. When they were not traveling, they spent most days and evenings together at one or the other's house.
Lyka and Matt moved in together after about a year of dating, settling into a new daily life built around each other. Initially, they lived in Wylie, TX, a suburb of Dallas (some might say, an "uma"). Matt would get up early every morning, dutifully make 19-step espresso drinks, and still need to be reminded to make the bed. Lyka would do much of the planning around shopping, meals, and trips. Consequently, Matt expanded his palate to include many previously unknown Filipino dishes. On the weekends, they frequented a not-so-local hot yoga class, where they nearly met their maker the year before, followed by a stop at one of several nearby coffee shops. Date nights included visits to several Bib Gourmand and Michelin-star restaurants along the way.
While he'd thought about it for some time already, Matt began to seriously plan the proposal immediately after his second trip to the Philippines for yet another immaculately executed wedding, this time for Lyka's nearest brother in age. Their time had come. On New Year's Eve 2025, almost two years to the day since their first date, Matt popped the question. (More details on this part of the story below ↓)
Long story short, she said yes! And so began the wedding planning, that very night, in fact ;). 2026 would turn out to be a momentous year for them indeed. A short time later, Matt landed a new job in a nearby city, Austin, TX, where Lyka's work was already located. Determined not to waste the three weeks Matt had between jobs, the couple moved to Austin promptly, moving in just two weeks after deciding to relocate. Since then, they've already moved AGAIN, from a rented townhome to a house they bought together in Austin proper. The days of hour-plus commute times were over, hopefully forever.
They married legally in an intimate courthouse ceremony on July 7, 2026, with several family members on both sides present. Both are "cradle Catholics" (a term they learned recently); their church ceremony is planned in Lyka's hometown of Iloilo on December 12, 2026. Please RSVP now!
The Proposal
I actually had a tiny hint that a proposal might be on the horizon. Back in November, when my brother Prince was visiting, Matt accidentally let it slip that he had a ring! I spent the next month playfully teasing him about it, but honestly, I wasn't entirely sure if it was real or if he was just messing with me.
My suspicions officially peaked in December when he casually mentioned he had secured a dinner reservation for us at Shoyo on New Year's Eve. For context, Shoyo is an incredibly intimate, 14-seat sushi omakase restaurant. Reservations open on the first Monday of the month and sell out in about 15 minutes flat. Since I am almost always the designated planner for our dining adventures, the fact that he went out of his way to pull this off, on top of his November slip-up, told me something special was definitely brewing.
During dinner, he was quiet. I didn't think too much of it at the time; because of the intimate setup, I just happily chatted away with the people sitting next to us, giving them my rundown of other restaurant recommendations in the area. After an amazing dinner, we stepped outside. Right there, with no grand production or crowds of onlookers, Matt got down on one knee. It was so perfectly "us", with no fuss, no spectacle, just a quiet, beautiful moment between the two of us to close out the year. And of course, I said yes.
For me, this story begins many months earlier. The groundwork was laid subtly (or maybe not so) by simply gauging her receptiveness, steering conversations to the future, talking about our plans and ambitions.
It was on a long-haul flight home from Japan, I sat next to Lyka as she giggled away to episodes of the British TV show Taskmaster, that I steeled my resolve: I was going to marry this girl. I'd regrettably missed my chance to have a proper sit-down with the parents during Prince's (perfectly executed) wedding the week before, but oh well: nobody said this would be easy. And in retrospect, this was maybe the easiest decision I ever made. I knew it was right, and just needed to plan and execute.
So, that week in October, we made it home, and getting the ring was top of mind. Having decided a general outline of what I wanted for her, I found various ways to get out of work to ring shop over the next week or so, and ultimately pulled the trigger during a team building event I'd snuck out of. I hid it, not too well, in the house, and waited for the right time.
My real plan for the proposal was to do it at White Rock Lake in Dallas, an early date of ours that became a yearly tradition in January: scenic, quiet, personal, great for photos, somewhat poetic. But poetry sometimes writes itself, and when I was looking for a Christmas present that year I managed to score reservations to a restaurant where we shared another memorable date, right on the eve of the anniversary of our first date (New Year's Eve). I decided it was kismet. Plus, if I chickened out, White Rock was just around the corner.
That night we dressed up nicely and went to this fancy omakase restaurant, me with a loose ring in my pocket, because the box was too big to hide. As we walked in, I remembered just how intimate this place was, too intimate for a proposal that didn't include the other guests. So we ate dinner and had a good time, while I did a not-too-good job of keeping my cool. When we finished eating, the time was upon me, and I got down on one knee on the street, in front of the restaurant in Greenville. The first person to congratulate us was a random teenager on a skateboard. Not exactly the poetry I imagined, but all's well that ends well.