Julian & Amara
Our Story
Julian and Amara
It started with a look across a crowded room. Yes, really.
2019
How We Met
Amara
Amara:
Julian insists that he noticed me first.
Julian:
I did notice her first.
Amara:
What he actually means is that he stared at me from the other side of the room for about twenty minutes before saying hello.
We met at my friend Sophie’s birthday party in the summer of 2019. Sophie is the kind of person who invites people she hardly knows to her parties, and luckily Julian was one of those!
I was standing in the kitchen talking to somebody when I noticed this man across the room looking at me.
Julian
Julian:
That version makes me sound slightly alarming.
The truth is that Amara was laughing. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she had this huge laugh and I remember thinking, I want to know what she finds so funny.
So I very casually joined the group. You know, in a coolly unobtrusive way.
We talked for perhaps ten minutes. Then somebody interrupted us, somebody else dragged Amara away, and I thought I’d missed my chance.
Fortunately, Sophie gave me her number.
Amara:
After asking me first, I should add. And you weren’t unobtrusive! You were so obvious!
The coffee that lasted all afternoon
Our first proper date was coffee. Nothing elaborate. No candlelit restaurant, no grand gesture. We met at a little café on a Saturday morning and ended up staying so long that we ordered lunch as well.
Julian was supposed to be meeting somebody later. He cancelled.
Julian:
Very happily.
Amara:
I had some work I absolutely had to finish, so at one point I pulled out my laptop and said, “You can go, you know.”
He didn’t.
A friend happened to come into the café and took a photograph of us without telling us. I didn’t see it until afterwards.
Now it is one of my favourite photographs.
I’m concentrating completely on whatever was on my screen and Julian is looking at me.
Julian:
Apparently I had already made my mind up.
Amara:
I clearly hadn’t.
And then it just grew
There wasn’t one particular moment when we suddenly became serious. It was a friendship that just grew.
Amara:
It was Julian surprising me with coffee when I was working late. Me discovering that he somehow used every pan in the kitchen when cooking one meal. Sunday walks that were supposed to last half an hour and turned into three. Arguments about whether you really need to arrive at the airport two hours early.
Julian:
You do.
Amara:
You really don’t.
We travelled together for the first time after we’d been dating for about eight months. That was probably when we both realised this might be something permanent.
Julian:
Travelling is a useful test of a relationship.
We discovered that Amara is exceptionally calm when everything goes wrong.
Amara:
And Julian becomes exceptionally interested in spreadsheets.
Julian:
Spreadsheets solve problems.
After about eighteen months we moved in together. By then, there wasn’t really a conversation about whether this was the real thing, because it so clearly was.
Us
What we love about each other
Julian on Amara
The thing I love most about Amara is her curiosity.
She notices people. She asks questions. She remembers the little things someone mentioned three months ago.
And she makes ordinary life fun.
A supermarket trip with Amara can somehow become an adventure. Dinner gets interrupted because she’s remembered a song she wants me to hear. We’ll leave home for a ten-minute walk and end up sitting somewhere watching the sunset.
She has also taught me that not everything has to be planned.
I’m still working on that one.
Amara on Julian
Julian makes me feel safe, but not in the dramatic sense.
It’s more that he’s dependable. If he says he’ll be there, he’ll be there. If something needs doing, he’ll do it. If I’m worried about something, he doesn’t immediately try to fix things, He’s a good listener.
I also love the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not noticing.
Apparently he’s been doing that since the beginning.
The Proposal
The Proposal
There was a spreadsheet.
Julian:
I spent weeks planning the proposal.
Amara:
Which means there was almost certainly a spreadsheet.
Julian:
There was not a spreadsheet.
There was a spreadsheet.
I chose a place on the coast where we’d walked many times before. My plan involved a particular spot, a particular sunset and, a carefully calculated amount of time to get there so that my mate Brian could hide, ready to take a picture.
None of it went according to plan.
We left late.
We couldn’t find somewhere to park.
Amara wanted to stop for ice cream.
Amara:
It was very good ice cream.
By the time we reached the viewpoint, Julian was convinced we’d missed the sunset.
We hadn’t.
And there, with the sea behind us and absolutely no elegant speech because he’d forgotten almost everything he’d intended to say, he got down on one knee.
I remember saying yes before he’d finished asking me.
07 September 2024
The day we said ‘I do’
Saturday, 07 September 2024
07 September 2024
We were married in September 2024, five years after the party where we first met.
We wanted the wedding to be relaxed. We didn’t want to spend the entire day posing for photographs or worrying about whether everything was running precisely to schedule.
Julian:
I had a schedule.
Amara:
Of course he did.
We chose a small venue surrounded by trees, with the ceremony outside in the late afternoon.
There were about 70 people — family, old friends and quite a few of the people who had been at that first birthday party.
Sophie was there, of course. She still thinks that our entire relationship is thanks to her. I didn’t want any bridesmaids in the traditional sense, but she helped me so much with everything.
I walked down the aisle with my mother. Julian was crying before I made it halfway!
Julian:
I maintain that there was something in my eye.
Amara:
There were witnesses.
Our vows were the part of the day that mattered most to us. We wrote them ourselves and didn’t show each other beforehand but it turned out we’d both written almost exactly the same thing: not promising some perfect life, but promising to keep choosing each other through the ordinary one.
Afterwards there was dinner outside, far too much dancing and speeches that ranged from touching to deeply embarrassing.
Memories
Reception
Still writing it
Still writing it
Our wedding wasn’t the end of our love story.
It was one day in it.
There have already been thousands of cups of coffee, hundreds of ordinary Tuesdays, trips that went wrong, meals that went right, difficult days, ridiculous conversations and moments neither of us thought to photograph.
Those are probably the bits that matter most.
And if there is one photograph that somehow tells the whole story, perhaps it’s still that early one in the coffee shop.
Amara concentrating on something else.
Julian looking at her.
Some things haven’t changed.
Memories
Mountain
Memories
City Park
