About Ann and Noel

Meet Ann

Ann is a Vietnamese-born literary and photography enthusiast. She came to the US with her father at the age of 11. As soon as she picked up English (her aunt and uncle recall that she could fluently speak the language within just three months of living in the US), she voraciously read fantasy books and fell in love with literature. She fondly remembers spending lazy summer afternoons on the couch with a book in one hand and a bag of Lays potato chips in the other. It is, of course, with no surprise that Ann obtained both a bachelor and master degree in English and is now a copyeditor. Despite her love of the language arts, she can still be found mispronouncing words and frequently making subject verb agreement errors, for which she is unceasingly teased by close friends and coworkers. Ann attributes her slip-ups to her "fobby" side.

Some of Ann's favorite books include Narcissus and Goldmund, The Sound and Fury, the Harry Potter series, and His Dark Materials series. When not bugging Noel, wedding planning, and taking pictures and posting them on her photoblog which consumes 99.9% of her time, she currently dabbles with reading Eldest and Lord of the Rings.

Ann hopes to have more time in the future to explore her creative potential, specifically, by travelling, taking pictures, and writing about her adventures. Of course, making a living doing the aforementioned would be ideal too. For now, wedding planning is satisfying her creative drive as she loves to work with Noel on writing for and designing the wedding website as well as planning other wedding and reception details.

Meet Noel

Noel, programmer and web designer extraordinaire, is an entrepreneur, business owner, and web consultant at Niche Tank, Inc. Noel was raised by a pack of free-range computers... no, that's the wrong story. Noel was raised by his family to be kind hearted, helpful, competitive and spirited. It was with these ideals in mind and the dream of helping other businesses succeed that he founded his company. Aptly named a "hippy at heart" by his parents, Noel often exercises extreme idealism expecting world peace and love. When his head's not up in the clouds you might expect to see his dark and dangerous side, which of course is what attracted Ann to him in the first place.

Full moons aside, Noel enjoys stimulating his brain with intellectual and creative pleasures. When he's not busting his hump at his day job he can be found embracing his latest hobby, learning acoustic guitar. Noel enjoys cooking and can be found experimenting with sour, sweet, salty, savory and especially spicy treats. It's safe to say that Noel and his taste buds are also fans of eating. His favorite TV show is currently Heroes.

Noel enjoys travelling with Ann and reading what she puts down on paper. He is honored to be her fiance and looks forward to becoming her husband. He hopes to help all of Ann's dreams come true.

Ann Meets Noel

Ann and Noel met in the summer of 2001 at UCI, where Noel was studying computer science and Ann was visiting a friend. They became instant friends. After attending a Green Day concert together Ann went to visit Noel at his office at work, where their mutual friend, without Ann's knowledge, slyly left Ann's phone number on Noel's desk. Noel was adamant about hanging out with Ann, coming up with excuses to see her more often. He found an excuse to meet her at her family's house and even accompanied her family to Legoland the next day, despite knowing her only for a couple weeks. Ann was in turn just as fond of Noel's company.

When the summer ended, Ann returned to school in Davis, a long 8 hour drive from Noel. Despite being geographically undesirable to each other, they continued to write and call each other often. Although they were aware of their mutual feelings for each other, both were hesitant to jump into a long-distance relationship. However, when Noel came to visit Ann just a couple weeks after their separation, it was evident to both that despite the admonitions of logic, their hearts would not be dissuaded. Thus began a now, 7-year long relationship. Luckily, only 2 of the 7 years were spent far away from one another. While Ann attended graduate school in Long Beach, they moved in together and they've lived together ever since. Through the years, they experienced many trials, errors and hardships of a relationship, learning everything about one another, disagreeing with just about everything, and then finally, learning to love all the imperfections and faults of one another. Through the years, they were often "suggested" to get married, but being the slow bloomers that they are, they took their time. They learned to grow together during that time, an experience that helped them to appreciate and love each other more and more every day.