(Cheris)

The great mystery of life is how one person carrying a seemingly unremarkable detail can change the entire trajectory of our lives. Or how a small choice pushes forward a series of unremarkable reactions that become a butterfly effect and ripple out in ways that only the hand of God can direct. Most of the time, I think our omniscient creator, the all-knowing God, is the only one who sees the ways we impact others, to varying secret magnitudes, unless, of course, we get the privilege of what I’m going to call the full-on boomerang effect.

Perhaps this is why we love stories so much as humans. Because good stories in my opinion, tell us how we can impact others without even knowing. I love a good plot twist, don’t you?

Let’s just say the start of our story was, ahem, over 30 years ago in high school on a field trip of all things! Bob Hasty, our band and orchestra director, had the brilliant idea of taking a bus-load of high schoolers to San Francisco so we could perform live at Fisherman’s Wharf for a crowd of curious passerbys. Aren’t we glad he did! It turns out some of our best memories were there in SF, being young and unsupervised, running through a big city! Not quite memories with each other, but shared adjacent memories, epic memories even, but we did, in fact, meet on that chartered bus to San Francisco.

(Brandon)

So Cheris didn’t know this, but she caught my eye earlier than the bus ride. I saw her at our required pre-trip band meetings. I'd definitely say it had something to do with that big radiant smile and the long flowing hair. I didn’t actually say anything to her until we were on that bus. I may have said something to Dustin or Adam. We sat near enough to each other on the bus that I had 7 hours where I built up the courage to strike up a conversation about the most obvious topic I could come up with - music.

We performed at Fisherman's Wharf with our Dana Hills band groups, chatting and engaging in wonderful conversation, which really didn't stop (we both loved to talk, no surprise there). I enjoyed my time with Cheris; she was just so likable and cute, so I ended up asking Cheris to our first dance, Dana Hills Homecoming 1994.

(Cheris)

Brandon picked me up in his Camaro, which I'm sure he thought he was about to scrape on my Dad’s super-steep driveway. As nervous as I was, I jumped into his low rider car wearing the only dress I had at that time to Homecoming (which was actually my Orchestra dress ie. he'd already seen me in it) and having all the anxiety of being with a boy, showing up to a dance for the first time, I wasn't at all ready for the next curve ball.

Brandon casually says to me, “oh, by the way, my parents want us to stop by before we go to the dance.” My heart, in sheer panic, might have stopped in that very teenage moment. What could I do but steel myself against the growing panic? I was already trapped in his car. So I played it as cool as possible. As someone who has a bit of social anxiety, I was, of course, freaked out inside. I’m meeting his parents right now?! But meeting Melody and Randy was no problem at all. I remember being put at ease and happy to find out this year that we actually have a picture from that moment! How happy am I now, though, that we took that detour! I get to call them my future parents-in-law.

(Brandon)

It wasn't long until our nebulous, undefined dance-date-going friendship deepened when Cheris invited me to the youth group at Community Christian Church, or what the youth group kids called it - C.C.C., of course. It was a place that truly filled my youth group void and would forever change the trajectory of my life. It opened the door to meeting many people who helped me grow and who shaped my path.

I can single-handedly thank Cheris for so many good memories in my life. The past I've lived as a result of her simple invitation to that solidly bible-rooted place of worship, that so many of us put down roots during our teenage years, creating a fundamental time in our faith journey. To this day, we talk about how special a group that was - our CCC crew. And as life moves on, sadly, we even recently lost another of our youth group peers. Isis! We are still shocked at her loss. Earlier, as Cheris and I were trolling our old yearbooks, being sentimental and silly, I found a note from Isis right after she liked her engagement post on Facebook. It cracked me up so much. Andrea later told us at Isis’s memorial that she was at Disneyland with her sister when she saw our engagement post and exclaimed, “I KNEW IT!” I wanted to share it here because I missed the chance to show Isis in person, and it’s just too good. Of all the things she decided to write in my yearbook she wrote this:

Brandon,

It was nice meeting you this year and hearing you talk about Cheris ALL THE TIME.

Have a great summer.

See ya later.

♥ ISIS

P.S. :)

Say Hi to Todd

for me. :)

That was the 1993-1994 yearbook, and I guess I was obnoxiously driving Isis nuts by talking nonstop about Cheris. Finding that now feels like a hidden clue that touched my heart.

Granted, Cheris and I were two peas in a pod. We both loved youth group, music, and movies. It's so funny because when I look at my twins, who just turned 16 and are learning to drive, I was about that same age when I met Cheris. I now see my son Everett geeking out over movies and music; he's definitely a chip off the old block! Cheris recalls riding in my teal car (ehem Race Car lol), the "Camaro", and sharing my overzealous collection of tunes in the form of the largest CD Binder imaginable. And, listening to me patiently talk affectionately about Christian underground music for hours. She remembers the teal Camaro smelled like too many air freshener trees, because it did. It is still a point of chemical-contamination-contention between us to this day. So much changes, and then some things stay the same forever.

(Cheris)

Brandon likes to remind me that I invited him to our youth group and then didn’t show up that Wednesday night. I don’t remember not showing up, probably because I wasn’t there! I feel pretty bad about that, but lucky for me, we had a really awesome youth group, so he didn’t feel the social pain he could have, not anything like a spontaneous meeting of the parents, right? But who likes to walk into a group alone at 16 - nobody I know! That’s where Brandon met Brett & Joanne Clifford, our youth group pastor and wife duo extraordinaire, and plot twist update: Brett will be marrying us by the way.

I do like to remind Brandon that, though I didn’t show up that particular night, that’s how he eventually got baptized, met Charis, whom he married for a solid 26 years, gained a son, Brayden, and twins in the process - Everett & Avaline! They just turned 16, can you believe it?

Many of you do know the story behind Brandon losing his late wife, Charis, mother of 3, and the sheer tragedy of it. I remember her all the way back from 5 years old in kindergarten. She was so sweet to me, and because our names were so similar and yet so rare, we would sit next to each other on the carpet, as kindergartners do, because our names were almost the same. Later, I ended up in Dana Hills Gymnastics class with Charis, and after that, we were singing together in the youth group worship band on Wednesday nights. We always had different friend groups, but ended up somehow in the same activities. I always liked her! And now seeing her daughter Avaline sing in plays just gives me all the feels because I know, personally from experience - she got it from her mama.

So, after DHHS Homecoming 1994, Brandon joined our CCC Youth Group, and a couple of dances had gone by, winter formal was coming up. I was dateless so far, and it was probably because it was one of those girls-ask-guys winter formal deals. So, yeah, it was on me to make it happen. For a socially awkward introvert, the anxiety of asking a guy to a dance was next level.

Fortunately, that's what best friends are for, and I got the much-needed push in the right direction from my BFF, Alexis Adams (now Walsh), to ask Brandon Jones. She was probably tired of me talking about him all the time and wanted me to go ahead and do something about it. She is a pretty intuitive kind of person, so she obviously was onto something, and that small push (or big, you’ll have to ask her) was one of those key elements that sent my life on its mysteriously aimed trajectory.

It was the start of probably one of the longest boomerangs to love out there. 30 years?! You bet that I, my family, and all my friends have been scratching our heads for decades on where my forever dude was. God, hello, are you there? And now I am so happy to have this chance with him moving forward, knowing it really could not have made sense one moment earlier. I was missing a partner and a life companion, and never in my wildest imagination would I have thought it would be a blast from the past - Brandon Jones. And yes, we have always used his full name. I have no idea why, but it just stuck that way. As my mom says, “Life will turn on a dime.” And she is so right.

(Brandon)

I remember when Cheris invited me to Winter Formal 1996, and it would be our very last dance together as “ambiguous dates with photo proof.” They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and these days, memories and pictures are a part of my fabric of history. Saving these old memories held such importance that I didn't realize until now...little did I know I would make this boomerang back to the past to collect them! After high school, Cheris and I went on our own paths. We naturally drifted apart over time as I got married and she went off to college and to living in other states.

Our lives grew in very different directions as we became adults, but that friendship was probably always there on layaway (old memories need old terms) as good as new, just with 30 years of dust or friendship APR? We both attended God's path for our lives until it curved right back around to meet one another later in life. We took an epic 30-year millennium apart to experience all that God and life had to offer, and to grow through times of joy, laughter, and grief. It is what has made us make perfect synchronous sense now at this later point in life.

(Cheris)

I spent 30 years kind of wondering what the plan was for me. I had a career in television, then moved into learning producing in live event marketing, which eventually, after the pandemic, became digital & graphic marketing. I had lived in Orange County, Minnesota, West LA, New Orleans, Pasadena, West LA again, and then off to Rhode Island. For me, Rhode Island fulfilled a dream of living on the East Coast in an industrial converted loft. I chose Rhode Island because it reminded me of an East Coast Dana Point and because Elaina lived there, of course. We had worked on King of the Hill in Los Angeles, and then we worked again together in Marketing at New England Tech. We had been to the Emmys Diamond Ball together, laughed and cried together through birthdays, baby showers, and all the way to our East Coast Adventures.

I had always thought I would meet "the one for me" when I was 14, and it was a really long time wondering what God had planned. The irony is that it turns out I did meet the one for me when I was 14, it's just God had a lot for me to learn and work through to be ready to be a partner. To say our story feels nothing less than epic, a last-minute comeback before all is lost, is an understatement. We both had our share of growing through life, and its ups and downs. And now we get to navigate those together. I added 3 decades of things you do when you don't have kids - so it became a gallery!

(Brandon)

God has been working wonders in my life and heart these past few years, and the fact that I found someone as perfectly fitting to my dreams for a partner as Cheris in this stage of life has been nothing short of extraordinary. From knowing each other as young, passionate, and silly youth with lofty goals of taking on the whole world to now being middle-aged adults with hard-earned maturity (of knowing who you are and what you want), reconnecting has synced up into a giant plot twist for us all. I would like to think, or actually I know deep down, a divine intervention from a loving God.

Even with life throwing more curve balls, like losing my grandma at Christmas (she and Cheris bonded over cats too), but also good curve balls like selling this house and finding a new home to build together as a family, and it all magically coming together with really awesome timing, I know through the ups and downs that God’s hand is there guiding it.

It's funny, but a year after my late wife Charis passed away, we reconnected literally over dumb, fluffy, ridiculous orange Persian cats! 30 years later, and a picture of me with my orange cat was enough to get us talking (probably no surprise to anyone who knows Cheris), and we haven't stopped talking since. A random Facebook comment on that cat pic turned into late-night chats, then virtual coffee dates from California to Rhode Island, and suddenly the past 30 years melted away. Alexis had a strong inkling this would happen, as we later found out, even though we both were completely clueless. She’s Cheris’ Maid of Honor, which makes so much sense to me, as she was also on that bus to SF and on our double date to the winter formal with Dustin, my groomsman, of course! It's funny how other people know things before we do, and how a little fluffy animal can truly bring out a spark in two people, even those recovering from a broken heart.

So, as we look forward to April 18th, 2026, our very good plot twist celebration day and reunion throwback wedding - who's ready for a little get together of old friends and new loves? With the sun in our faces, the smell of sea air, and that unforgettable Orange County beach climate, we hope you'll join us for some fun and celebration in Dana Point this April 2026 as we look forward to becoming husband and wife.

(Cheris)

This will be our 3rd dress-up event (which it was Brandon’s turn to ask me this time), but it's our boomerang back to forever.....or as Brandon likes to say - the sequel or the 30-year Boomerang.

Together, we bring together so many cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, and grandparents from all sides, that is such a neat kind of joy to have in your late 40’s! From losses that feel like life is being burned to the ground, to new life, God truly works in mysterious ways. Won't you join us as we reconnect old friends, merge new blended families, and celebrate the heck out of a very good plot twist?! God is creating something new, and I can’t wait.

Cheris & Brandon, Wedding 2026

PS. Our bridal party is so special to us in so many ways. God’s Easter eggs never cease to amaze me. For one, I’m not the only one who went to the winter formal as Brandon’s date that year. Can you guess who else it was?! She is in our wedding, and I did not even meet her until I lived in Los Angeles in my 20’s.

Spoiler: She's now one of my dearest friends from my LA Bel Air Presbyterian days, and discovering our shared 'Brandon date' history years before the reconnection was mind-blowing! What are the chances we even discovered this bit of trivia way before I reconnected with Brandon?! My brother could do the math on that probability, but we have photo proof, and it cracks me up to no end. (Cheris)