On Alexandria Angco's 28th birthday in September 2022, she declared that she would not date anyone for an entire year. Her dates weren't going so well and she, instead, wanted to focus on herself.
Twelve days later he met Christian Chai Chua in person for the first time. And five months later, they got engaged.
“I failed,” he said of his goal. But in the end it turned out to be a good thing.
The two first met on Zoom in August 2020 at an annual conference hosted by Singles for Christ, a group for Catholic young adults.
Ms. Angco, who is from Toronto and is called Ali, and Mr. Chua, who is from Vancouver, British Columbia, and is called Ian, met again at subsequent virtual events organized by the group, although neither thought much in other. In September 2022, the organization held an in-person conference in Vancouver, its first since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Ms. Angco, 29, arrived by plane to attend the event.
At the conference, Mr Chua, also 29, attended a personal development workshop facilitated by Ms Angco. “The workshop went very well,” Chua said. “I was very impressed. I thought, “This girl is funny and she's smart.”
During Sunday Mass on the final day of the conference, Mr. Chua sat next to her at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Burnaby, a city near Vancouver. “Wow, this girl is beautiful,” he remembered thinking.
He invited a group of friends from the conference to go stargazing that night. All night long, Ms Angco was trying to be a companion to a friend who was in love with Mr Chua. But she accidentally captivated him. His jokes made him laugh so hard that his friends warned him to keep quiet to avoid complaints from neighbors.
The next morning, he called her and asked her out.
“For some reason, I immediately said, 'Yeah, let's go,'” he said.
She called her friend who had a crush on him, who encouraged her to go on the date and told her she had no hard feelings.
That night, Chua packed a blanket, a bag of chips and hot chocolate in her car. He picked her up and the two went stargazing in Porteau Cove Provincial Park. It was pitch black and they sat in the dark for three hours talking about their education, their families, and their dreams. “My brain was very busy,” Angco said.
In an effort to get to know other people and better understand what they love about themselves, Mr. Chua likes to ask one question in particular: “Why are you worth getting to know?”
“I thought, what a good question,” Ms. Angco thought. “I've never written about it in my diary.”
Their flight to Toronto left at 5 p.m. the next day, but they made time for a second date at the Vancouver Art Gallery. After reflecting on the question he had asked her the day before, she brought it up again. That excited Mr. Chua.
“It's a very special question because knowing that someone knows their value and worth means a lot to me,” she said. After she returned to Toronto, they stayed in touch and talked on FaceTime almost every day.
That November, before a Singles for Christ retreat in Holtwood, Pennsylvania, they made it official. During Sunday mass, she whispered to him, “I'm ready to be your girlfriend.” And he whispered shyly to her: “So, do you want to be my girlfriend?”
Ms. Angco is a Senior Product Designer at Shopify, an e-commerce company. She graduated in neurobiology from the University of Toronto. Mr. Chua is a concierge and bellhop at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Center. He received a diploma in tourism from the Canadian Tourism College.
In February 2023, Chua proposed to Angco on a gondola on Mount Habrich in Squamish, British Columbia. On January 6, they were married at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver in front of 115 guests. The Reverend Pablo Santa María officiated.
The Filipino couple incorporated the tradition of the coin, veil and cord into their ceremony, during which they exchanged coins as a symbol of their commitment to each other and their community. A veil was covered over their shoulders and a cord was wrapped around them to symbolize their union.
The reception, held at the Brass Fish Tavern, included a game of kissing bingo. Ms Angco had printed giant bingo cards filled with tasks for guests to complete in order for the couple to kiss.
“Everyone laughed,” Angco said.
