Whenever we’re asked how we met, Sean and I both respond, “Ummmm.”

The truth?

We really don’t know how we met, but we figured we had to get the story down before we got married.

The easy answers would be “through mutual friends” or “at a barbecue,” but that’s not completely accurate.

Here’s what we know:

We met in Los Angeles in May 2002. Ten years is a long time and all I remember is being introduced to Sean and his friends from New York. I don’t even remember what we talked about, or if we talked about anything.

Seven months later, I saw him again when I took a trip to New York with a bunch of mutual friends. During that trip, I hung out with Sean and friends once or twice again. I think we watched a movie (Gangs of New York, maybe) and ate at a Chinese restaurant near Times Square.

Neither of us remember more than being in each other’s presence with several other friends.

Although we were both part of the same online network, I didn’t ever really interact with Sean. In May 2006, he came to LA for a wedding. We sat at the same table. A few years later I told Sean, “I didn’t even remember that you were at Andrea and Jasaun’s wedding until I went through the pictures.”

“We sat at the same table! How could you forget?” I blame our friends’ adorable baby girls sitting at the table with us.

I do know that Sean and I started interacting more through our blogs in early 2007.

Sean’s first comment — according to WordPress — on a post about the Coachella Arts & Music Festival: “Rumor has it The Police might be reuniting there as well.”

We soon realized we had very similar taste in music and television. We both adored Rilo Kiley and lamented the fact that our local friends didn’t love the group as much. We chatted almost daily on G-Chat about Lost theories, new music and dating misadventures.

Our relationship continued like this for a few more years. Sean was the first person to apply for the position of concert buddy by sending in a mix CD. I loved the songs he chose and soon developed a mini crush I kept to myself… and the blog.

When I visited New York for an education conference in 2008, we hung out, watched Lost played video games (I won, of course) and drank beer while talking about the similarities in our upbringings as first generation kids. The next year when he came to LA, I took him out for Mexican food and watched Lost.

We were friends for a long time and got to know each other quite well before either of us ever let on that we — gulp — had non-platonic feelings. Despite this, there was still a lot I’d come to learn about Sean while falling in love with him.

Sean’s now my concert buddy for life. No plane ticket required. Mix tapes still accepted.

Wrote this for the wedding website. I was inspired to revisit it when I read Melissa Nibbles’ post on the book Love Is A Mix Tape and thought about how sharing music helped my relationship with Sean develop from platonic friendship to long distance relationship and then some.