We met way back in May of 2014. Ariel was working as the Post-Production Assistant on Better Call Saul and Jonny had just been hired as a Post-Production Assistant on the Sony lot. Once a week, Ariel would make the drive from Burbank to Culver City to pick up paychecks, check out equipment, typical PA stuff. If you ask Ariel about that first day, she'll probably tell you she doesn't remember it (she was WORKING not fraternizing). If you ask Jonny, he'll say that the first thing he noticed was a bright red ponytail bouncing over the edge of his cubicle. He was mesmerized. Was it love at first sight? No. (We're PROFESSIONALS, remember?)

A year passed, we went our separate ways -- Jonny left Sony to work on Preacher, Ariel joined the writers' office at Better Call Saul -- then our paths converged again when Jonny joined the Saul team. He went in for his first interview and Ariel was there -- she hugged him (anyone who knows Ariel will attest to how rare that is). Two seasons of television, a road trip to Albuquerque, a night stranded in Kingman, AZ, a women's march, and many, many working lunches later, we were officially friends. Good friends. It wasn't until Jonny jumped ship to take a job on This Is Us (traitor) that we discovered it was something more.

Our first date was a pretty good indicator. We closed down a board game bar and painstakingly recreated our Scrabble board at 2am back at Ariel's place just so we could finish the game we'd started. (Note: Ariel won on the final turn. By 4 points.) To Jonny, Ariel is insane. She cares too much, wears her heart on her sleeve, and hates losing (she "jokes" that we wouldn't have had a second date if I had beat her in that first Scrabble game). But she's passionate and brilliant, talented and funny, and sometimes all of those things at once. It isn't just the ponytail that's mesmerizing. It's all of her. To Ariel, Jonny is a unicorn (technically her therapist's words, but they ring true). He's earnest and kind, smart, and charming. Effortlessly charming. Like, how is it fair for someone to just "wing it" so successfully? He's probably not even going to write his vows ahead of time and just say something off the cuff and it'll be the most moving and beautiful speech any of us has ever heard. So much has happened since 2014. Ariel became a Dodgers fan, and then a baseball savant. Jonny became a cat person, and then we adopted Pimento. A flooded apartment, a pandemic, that time Ariel went blonde, a car accident, a labor strike, the Staples Center renaming itself to the Crypto.com Arena. We've weathered it all, and now we're getting married. We can't wait to celebrate with all of you!