Our Story
Although they grew up less than a mile from each other, Rohan and Jordan didn’t officially meet until they were 14 years old. It took a chance encounter on the first day of high school (involving a gymnasium, a plastic scooter, and Rohan’s hoodie) for their paths to finally cross; but that moment set the foundation for a long and happy friendship.
As high school unfolded, the two slowly bonded. They shared English classes, lunch tables, and mutual friends, but above all they bonded over their identities as athletes. Jordan, an elite gymnast, and Rohan, an aspiring footballer, quickly realized that they shared a knack for intense competition, missing school to go to training, and testing the limits of their parents’ chauffeur abilities. It was no wonder that they soon became close friends.
Although Rohan would eventually graduate from a different high school, their friendship remained strong all the way up until university, when Rohan packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles to study neuroscience, while Jordan headed to downtown Chicago to study arts & media. Although suddenly separated by two time zones and two thousand miles, the pair somehow grew closer; distance, as they say, made the heart grow fonder. Because when they finally saw each other the following summer, in Chicago, something was different. Friends? Always. But when Rohan awkwardly asked Jordan to be something more (at the incredibly-romantic Arrivals Terminal of O’Hare Airport) she agreed happily to start a new chapter of their lives. Together.
They spent the following year navigating the perils of a long-distance relationship, but Jordan soon got an opportunity to transfer to a film school in Los Angeles. So they hopped onto Route 66, heading towards the west coast together, to finish their degrees. Over their remaining years in university, Rohan and Jordan made a home in south central Los Angeles with a dozen close friends, and nearly as many cats. But when May 2020 came around, COVID meant there would be no graduation ceremony to attend; instead, Jordan found herself hosting a makeshift ceremony for Rohan and all their friends, handing out hand-drawn “diplomas” as the new graduates walked up the driveway, their families watching and applauding on Zoom.
A few months later, in August 2020, the two moved from Los Angeles back home to Chicago along with the newest member of their family, a sweet little black panther named Bast they had raised as a kitten. Around the same time, Rohan and Jordan started careers in education — Rohan as a curriculum designer, and Jordan as a Montessori teacher and communications coordinator. But when COVID began to fade into the background, they found themselves with an itch to go out and explore the world after being shut inside for so many months.
So it was that in late 2021, with the good fortune to be able to work remotely, they set off on a road trip without a destination, criss-crossing the North American continent for nearly two years. Their travels carried a scent of ocean breezes and chicken coops, a soundtrack of pottery wheels and letterpress printing, and the taste of po' boys and ice cream. Above all, those months were filled with the warmth of long-missed reunions with friends and family, all set against a slowly shifting background of the golden plains, pine forests, glacial valleys, and red-rock deserts.
Far from satisfied, in 2023 they moved abroad. They landed first in Buenos Aires, and slowly drifted across South America over the course of two years, leaving their footprints everywhere from the sands of the Copacabana beaches, to the ruins of the Peruvian mountains, to the murky waters of the Amazon over the course of 18 months.
But in April 2024, Rohan insisted they make a special trip home. A total solar eclipse would be passing just north of Chicago, he said, the day after his birthday! So they headed home, rented a cabin, and drove up north with a handful of close friends to see the same celestial event that they had planned to see together as teenagers, 7 years prior. There, in the calm hours leading up to the eclipse, they lay quietly in the grassy backyard on the shores of Lake Erie, listening to the water gently ripple against the shores. Then Rohan sat up, and asked Jordan the most important question of his life.
Newly engaged, the couple decided to do the most sensible thing: quit their jobs, and move across the world to Europe. They spent the next two years in Spain, teaching in public schools around the country. 2024 found them in sunny, romantic Sevilla, while 2025 sent them to the rugged and magical Basque Country of the north.
A few years and a few passport stamps later, the Chicago couple is coming home — to get married, to celebrate with all the wonderful people in their life, and to come back to where their story started, 14 years ago.
