He Thought Messaging Her Would Be Good Practice for Talking to Women!

Erik, of Grapeview, Washington, was open to online dating but wanted to meet someone who shared his Catholic faith. He joined CatholicMatch in 2019 and connected with Cindy that same year.

For her part, Cindy of Compton, California, joined CatholicMatch in 2015, like Erik, to find someone who shared her faith. She went on a couple of dates, but these relationships ultimately didn’t last. Then, in October 2019, she met Erik; this time, the relationship would lead to marriage.

They connected despite concerns about distance.

Cindy stumbled upon Erik’s profile when he came up as a “potential match,” but she passed on him. “I remember thinking, ‘He’s handsome, but he’s too far away,’” Cindy recalled. But, because she had looked at his profile, Erik was alerted and sent her a message, thinking she had a nice smile in her profile picture. It turned out he shared her reservations about the distance between them. “I sent a message, kind of thinking it wasn’t going to go anywhere because she lived so far away, but it was going to be good practice sending messages,” he recalled. “Oh, hey, how are you doing?” his first simple message read. From there, they began exchanging messages. The rest was history.

They chatted and prayed over the phone; then, he visited her in California.

After their original message exchanges, the pair quickly started exchanging emails, exchanging phone numbers, texting and calling each other, and soon started FaceTiming. Since faith was very important to them, they also started praying the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet over the phone. After hitting it off remotely, the pair decided it was time to meet in person, so Erik flew to California just a month after they initially messaged in January 2020.

During this first visit, the couple visited a pier in Long Beach called Shoreline Village and a museum in Los Angeles, the California Science Center. While first dates tend to be awkward and like meeting a stranger, Erik and Cindy didn’t feel like this because they had spent so much time talking over the phone and on FaceTime. Their conversations flowed naturally; there weren’t any mixed signals between them, and the pair already felt a deep connection. 

Covid didn’t stop their visits!

Their next visit wouldn’t be until May, with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting in March and shutting virtually everything down. However, they found that the pandemic was actually the best time for courtship. “Airlines were begging for people to buy tickets. I was buying tickets so cheaply, I’m talking about buying tickets from Seattle to LA for $39 each way!” Erik said. They’d alternate these weekend trips between Washington and California, typically seeing each other twice a month. 

During Erik’s visits to California, the couple would take trips along the Pacific coast to places like Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Diego. During Cindy’s trips to Washington, they’d walk along trails in Grapeview and nearby Port Orchard, Washington. The pair would also take trips to cities like Tacoma, Washington, where they visited the Brown and Haley Factory, home of the original Almond Roca candy, and Astoria, Oregon, where they visited the Hanthorn Cannery Museum at the site of the original Bumble Bee Tuna factory. 

But more importantly, they went to confession and Mass during each visit. “Erik loves the sacrament of confession; we’d always be going to Mass and confession, receiving the sacraments; that’s what really drew me to him,” Cindy recalled. After just a few months of visiting, the pair said they loved each other. And after about a year and a half of visiting one another twice a month and talking for even longer, their engagement became a matter of “when,” not “if.”

He made the move to California...

Meanwhile, In January 2021, Erik lost his job. This was a blessing in disguise since he now had the opportunity to move to California with nothing tying him down to Washington. He quickly found a job in California and moved there in March. He actually found a job faster than housing, so he stayed in a separate room in Cindy’s parent’s house for about a week before moving into his own place. 

He proposed quietly at a restaurant.

Just a few months after moving to California and about a year and a half after his initial visit there, Erik had a ring ready to go. On June 3rd, the couple had dinner at the Kettle Restaurant in Manhattan Beach, California. Erik didn’t want to draw attention to them during the proposal, so he decided not to drop on one knee. Instead, as they enjoyed food and wine, he grabbed Cindy’s hand and said, “Cindy, I really love you. You’re the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.” As he spoke, she was giggling and happy crying the whole time. He then popped the question, “Would you do me the honor of marrying me?”  “Yes,” she responded. 

Despite some tragic setbacks, they had a memorable wedding day.

After the engagement, the couple scheduled the wedding for September 10, 2022. They went through typical marriage preparation, taking a course online and doing in-person interviews. Unfortunately, the priest who was originally going to marry them and take them through marriage prep, Fr. Gregory King, passed away just a couple of months before the wedding day. Another priest, Fr. Roberto Rueda, took over and finished their marriage prep. 

Erik and Cindy did almost all the wedding planning themselves, only hiring people to handle the decorations and tables. Tragically, Lupe, the woman they hired to work on their decorations, also passed away before the wedding, so her family took over and finished the decorations. They later learned from her family that she had had cancer and so wasn’t working with as many people because of her condition. But she continued working with them because she really liked them and wanted to see their decorations finished. “We were really grateful,” Cindy recounted. 

Finally, after all the stressful planning and unfortunate setbacks, the wedding day finally arrived on September 10. They were married at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hawthorne, California, with Fr. Roberto presiding over a beautiful bilingual Mass in English and Spanish since Cindy’s family is Mexican. 

During the reception, the couple thanked Lupe’s family and commemorated her memory in their wedding speeches. The pair also washed each other’s feet in a foot-washing ceremony. This traditional ceremony symbolizes the newlywed couple’s commitment to Christlike humility, service, and selflessness towards their spouse by washing their feet. Cindy’s aunt then read Bible verses correlating with the foot washing and explained the connections. “It was a very nice moment; it really made the day special,” Cindy recalled. 

Adjustments to married life:

Erik and Cindy have now been married for just over two years, residing in Paramount, California. They welcomed their daughter, Adeline, into the world in August 2023. The transition to married life was pretty smooth for Erik, who had been living independently since his 20s. It was more of an adjustment for Cindy, who had never lived away from her parent’s home until after the marriage. But after some time, she got used to living with only Erik and later Adeline and thinking of them as a family. The couple regularly attend Mass, pray together, and frequent the sacraments.

Their advice for current CatholicMatch users...

The couple’s advice for CatholicMatch users, mainly those hesitant about entering a long-distance relationship, is to be open to it and pray about it. “Long-distance can work, I think we’re an example,” Cindy said. “At first, I was worried about distance and hesitant because of experiences I had, I didn’t know what would happen. Once I realized I had a connection with Erik, I was more open to it,” she added. They also advise users to be open to all of God’s blessings when discerning a relationship because God has a plan for and wants to bless everyone.