Our story

July 17th, 2020
In July 2020, Julia went back to Hong Kong to visit her family. While she was there, she decided (with a little push from her friend) to set up a profile on Coffee Meets Bagel. She had intended to set it up, test it out before seriously giving it a try when she goes back to Seattle. She had actually been praying that God will bring someone to her, because she didn't know how she would meet someone during the pandemic. Lo and behold, the second person she matched with (and the first person she actually had a conversation with) was Raymond.
It was a fine summer evening, when Julia received the first message from Raymond while she was with two friends. Raymond was so nervous as he had been waiting to text Julia - he actually matched with her two days ago already and finally had the courage to send the message.
The two hit it off later that night in the conversation. For some reason, Julia thought Raymond already felt like a friend she's known for a long time, even if they were just learning about each other's lives. It was a sense of familiar comfort. Whereas Raymond's heart was pounding like crazy – this guy was smitten. Both of them couldn't sleep that night.
July 20th, 2020
Julia and Raymond had been texting much these few days, and Julia finally confessed to Raymond that she had to fly back to Seattle in a couple days, and that it might be best to just stay friends (Who thought this could work?! She hadn't even met him!)
After seeing Julia's text, Raymond was so sad, he went into the shower to mask his tears (just kidding, but he was pretty upset)
They still exchanged their WhatsApp contacts though, and kept on chatting, even though neither of them expected much out of it.
August 13th, 2020
By now Julia and Raymond had been basically texting every day. 100% sure they both were catching feelings. But Julia had a concern. She hadn't met Raymond in person - she hadn't even spoken to him on the phone. What if he sounded like Mickey Mouse in real life? What if she started developing more feelings but he turned out to talk funny?!
Julia would have preferred if Raymond had initiated a call, but he was taking his sweet time. So she couldn't wait any longer, and finally asked to do a quick call before she went to bed while Raymond was working from home that day. She was thinking it would be a quick one just to verify his voice. But there Raymond was, thinking it would be video call. He was a ball of nerves and immediately went to shave and changed into a decent shirt. They ended up talking on the phone for more than 3 hours.
Raymond did not sound like Mickey Mouse.
December 12th, 2020
Eventually Julia and Raymond started video calling, and Raymond finally confessed his feelings to Julia. (And she did reciprocate too!) There was not a day that Julia and Raymond did not talk in these few months. They were practically dating, but didn't want to put any label to it. Heck they still hadn't even met each other in person! They were both longing for the day when they could finally meet each other for the first time.
On December 12th, 2020, Julia got out of quarantine after flying back to Hong Kong for Christmas. Raymond still had work that Saturday morning and Julia went to his office to meet up with him. There, right outside the construction site of Raymond's project, next to a pile of dirt, Raymond finally asked Julia if she could be his girlfriend. On the first day they met each other, they became a couple.
2021 – 2022
These two years, both of them spent way too many hours on WhatsApp video calls, and way too much money on flights and hotels for quarantine. But they wanted to make their long-distance relationship work. Raymond and Julia tried to see each other every few months, sometimes in Hong Kong, and Raymond had also come to visit the US for the first time in his life. They even tried to coordinate to meet in Europe while they were both on work trips to Paris and Barcelona respectively. Many wonderful memories were made, throughout many corners of the world.
Both of them exhausted their creativity to make their long-distance feel more bearable. They cooked together via video calls, wrote each other letters, and Raymond even celebrated Julia's birthday with a one-man theatrical production with multiple acts, with the most creative use of Zoom virtual backgrounds.
2023
While they were apart, they were brainstorming all the different paths they could take to be in the same city, while praying for God to open doors. All praise to God, Raymond got an opportunity from his company to go abroad to two cities for two years, one in each. His preference would obviously be to go to anywhere in the US. However it didn't work out that way. Raymond had to make a detour to London for one year, before his company could send him to the US. And so his London adventure began.
Meanwhile, Julia had been trying to ask Spotify if she could work remotely from London, since there was a big office there too. To her dismay, HR didn't approve it. It wasn't easy to fathom yet another year of long distance, but they kept having faith in each other and in their Heavenly Father who has been watching over them all along.
2023 turned out to be a really fruitful and fun year. Raymond learnt a lot about being independent and adaptable in a new environment, relying more on God as he navigated the changes. God blessed him with many wonderful relationships whether through church, work or football. Julia got to visit Raymond a lot, and they ended up visiting many beautiful places across Europe – Paris, Nice, Amsterdam and more.
September 8th, 2023
Actually, before Raymond went to London, he had already been thinking about something. Something to do with a ring, and a lifelong commitment :) Two days before he left for London in January, he made sure to ask Julia's parents out for dinner, to ask for their blessings and for Julia's hand in marriage. Julia's parents were overjoyed and made sure Raymond knew what he was signing up for 😂.
Raymond had been mulling over how to do the proposal for a long time. He wanted to do something that showed commitment and effort, so he decided to asked his friend to teach him how to play the piano (more like one song on the piano 😂) He went back and forth on his plans for quite a bit, unbeknownst to Julia. On the other hand, Julia was feeling a bit antsy for the whole year, as she had suspected he would pop the question sooner or later. She even did her nails every single trip she took to Europe.
On September 8th, 2023, on their 1000th day of being together, Raymond told Julia they would go on a sunset boat tour in Santorini followed by a nice dinner. Quoting the tour lady, "all the other guests were unfortunately sick". So on their now private tour, right in the middle of the Aegean Sea during a breathtaking sunset, Raymond performed what he had been practicing for many months, kneeled down and asked Julia to spend the rest of her life with him.
Of course she said yes!
2024
The year in London flew by in the blink of an eye. Praise the Lord, the plans for Raymond to go to the US finally settled towards the end of 2023. Of all the cities in the US, Raymond's new assignment is in Miami. Even though it was an answered prayer for Julia and Raymond to be able to live and work in the same city, it was incredibly hard for Julia to say goodbye to her Seattle community, especially since she had really made a lot of deep friendships over the years. It was probably one of the hardest transitions Julia had to go through in her life thus far. 😭
By God's grace, Raymond and Julia can finally be reunited. 🥹 They got to meet friends together for the first time, and see each other after work frequently. They are excited to welcome a new chapter of life after marriage and see where God leads them next!