It all started with,
"Hey that movie thing sounds awesome!"
After a fateful Facebook friend request due to their large number of mutual friends, Jaelyn and Satori finally got in touch in 2017 when Satori started production of a mental health awareness video. Jaelyn, a musician to her core, reached out to offer her services for making the soundtrack. While they never did end up collaborating on the video project, their friendship blossomed.
With Satori in Colorado and Jaelyn in Utah (away to attend college), their daily check-ins and cute animal photos turned into nightly video calls. Their love for the arts, similar taste in music, study of martial arts, and joy in helping others brought them closer together. Satori fought her feelings for Jaelyn until one of their mutual best friends, Ponto, called her up and told her she should jump on the chance to date an extraordinary person she connected with so well. With one sleepy "I think I'm falling for you," message from Jaelyn, the deal was sealed. Satori flew out to Utah to meet her crush after just a few months of dating, and the two found they were more perfect for each other than they could have ever have hoped. A first kiss at Barnes and Noble, two rainy museum dates, and a tearful goodbye later, the trip was over – but the journey had just begun.
When Jaelyn decided to return to Colorado, Satori was thrilled to watch her partner start audio engineering classes and begin to embrace her authentic self. The summer of Jaelyn's return, Satori was busy training for her black belt in a hapkido blend of martial arts. In addition to getting to go on all the dates they hadn't been able to have up until that point, Jaelyn was Satori's rock during her martial arts training. Jaelyn joined the same dojo, encouraged Satori through her intensive training sessions, and (years later) the two went on to become co-owners of a Rising Tide Martial Arts. In April of 2024, they went through the next phase in their martial arts relationship - together, Jaelyn tested for her first degree black belt and Satori for her second degree black belt under Sensei Rick Shaw.
Three years later, when they moved in together, they spent almost an entire summer dancing to the Mamma Mia movies and delving into philosophy. Soon, after watching a particularly adorable video of a man teaching a dog to pet his cat, they adopted their own pup, Valerie. When they moved in with college friends, they were even in the same band for awhile - Jaelyn as the bassist and Satori as the drummer. Together through multiple moves, life transitions, tragedies, and wonders, their bond has only gotten stronger.
With passion, connection, and empathy that feels like the strongest kind of magic, the two were engaged on October 1st, 2022. As Satori kneeled to propose at the Garden of the Gods, Jaelyn surprised her by pulling out her own hidden ring – and the two proposed to each other simultaneously (with a little more laughter than expected). They are so excited to share their love with you at their wedding!
What are the lovebirds up to these days? Jaelyn is a robotic lighting service technician at a major audio/visual production company, using her passion for taking things apart and figuring out how they work to repair lighting rigs used in large-scale productions. In her free time, she enjoys working on her own music projects - singing, playing a menagerie of instruments (including guitar, piano, and ukelele), and mixing and mastering her own music. Satori provides in-home therapy to children with autism and related conditions while working through her Master's degree in Special Education - Applied Behavior Analysis. When she has a moment, she spends her time writing novels and dabbling in art. Together with their friends and business partners (Bryce and Dana), they own Rising Tide Martial Arts, where they teach a hapkido blend to students of all ages. On the weekends, you can catch them playing Dungeons and Dragons with their friends.
