Our Story

e grew up in completely different places and cultures. It took countless coincidences, a million decisions and a global pandemic for us to meet.

Tom, son of Renee & Marcel and David & Shasta and brother to Joe, Lily (and now Molly!) was born and raised in Los Gatos, in California. A town with 30 thousand people nuzzled in the Santa Cruz mountains that looks straight out of an American Rom Com. Beautiful small brick buildings, including  an old school movie theater, cozy library and quaint ice cream shops.

Bea, daughter of José Guilherme & Marília, was brought up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A huge city with 13 million people, jammed between the ocean, huge mountains and tropical forests. Rio is beautifully chaotic, and what it lacks in structure and organization, it makes up for in liveliness and joy.

Tom went to Los Gatos High, a school that looks pretty identical to the one from High School Musical. In fact, they even had the same mascot – the Wild Cats! Bea, on the other hand, went to Colégio Santo Agostinho, known as one of the strictest Catholic schools in Rio.

At 15, Tom had to sneak out to party at friends' houses after 10pm because of the strict police (and Renee) enforced curfew. Bea, on the other hand, was out partying at the famous Brazilian "sweet 15" parties until the late hours of the morning when José and Marília, her parents, would supportively (albeit begrudgingly) come pick her up.

Though they loved their hometowns, both of them were intrigued to find out what else was out there. Tom was raised with a strong influence from his mom Renee's Italian heritage, as well as from Marcel, his step dad who's Swiss. They took him on adventures to Europe since he was 10. He loved the liveliness of Germany, the adventures in the mountains in Bern, and the beautiful architecture in Paris. His experiences were so formative that he became an International Studies and Business major in the University of Oregon.

That was just the beginning of a loooot of traveling. He spent a year learning French in Paris and backpacking through Europe. Later on, travel became quite literally his job when he worked in Hotel Tonight, a hotel company that required him to travel all over the US. After HotelTonight, and he lived in Barcelona for a coding bootcamp and then transitioned careers into engineering and entrepreneurship.

Bea's first major transformative international experience happened when she was 8. Her dad got transferred to work in East Hartford, Connecticut, and brought her and her mom along for the ride for 6 months. Though she barely knew a word of English before, she came out of it speaking fluently and with a love for the US and the sense of infinite possibility she felt there. She came back to Brazil with dreams of returning to the US and building a creative career like her heroes in Disney and Pixar.

Many years later, Bea went to the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro to study Digital Media Design. That was not a major her teachers or parents were thrilled about since Brazil didn't have a strong job market for the creative industry. Worried about becoming a starving artist, Bea started looking for internships almost as soon as she joined college. Among many other applications, she applied for a new, unknown internship program that taught students how to code and make their own iOS apps – little did she know that was an Apple sponsored program that would change her career.

She was surprised to learn she loved what coding allowed her to do, and started traveling to California to attend Apple's conferences. Funnily enough, the first conference she went to was about two blocks away from Tom's Hotel Tonite office in San Francisco – we just missed each other.

After years building her skills, she landed her dream job with Apple in Cupertino. She also managed to get selected in a work visa lottery on the first attempt, which was extremely lucky – this was just before the lockdown, so if she hadn't won, she probably wouldn't have been able to enter the country for 2 more years.

Simultaneously, Tom was looking for a change of pace and was planning to move back to Paris for good. However, the pandemic threw a wrench in his plans as the country's borders closed down. He took it as a sign to move back home to Los Gatos and fulfill one of his lifelong dreams of build his very own startup, TopKey.

Finally, we were in the same place and in the same time. Sort of... When we matched online, Tom was traveling in the US for TopKey. We dated through video for a month before meeting in person, and it felt like talking to a close friend we hadn't seen in a long time. When we finally did meet in person, there was clearly more than friends material to be had. Wink wink.

The pandemic gave us a great excuse to spend about every free second together. We'd spend hours drawing , listening to music and playing guitar, beach volleyball, buying plants and playing video games. We moved in together and found a shared love for interior decorating (and neon signs). Eventually, we got our very own place and have been putting even more love and care into renovating it and making it our own.

One of our favorite things is to spend time with each others' families. We've had awesome adventures with David and Shasta (Tom's dad and step mom) in Vegas, Joe and Molly (Tom's brother and sister in law) in Seattle, Renee and Marcel in Santa Cruz, and Grandpa Joe and Grandma Barb in Paradise.

As US borders opened up, we've been traveling to Brazil for two months out of the year, and Tom fit right into his new Brazilian family. We go to Búzios with José and Mari, and recently spent our very first Brazilian Christmas together. Bea's Grandma Dora always makes coxinha, Tom's favorite Brazilian food, when he comes.

We've since also had the chance to travel to Paris and Bern together with Renee, Marcel, Joe and Molly. We had an unreasonable amount of pain au chocolat, saw Monet's gardens in Giverny, went up to the top of Swiss Alps, and celebrated Marcel's mom's life in Bern.

We also had a small courthouse ceremony in SF City Hall for legal purposes and for close family and friends nearby.

Renee and Marcel recently also came down to to meet the Rio way of life for the first time. They're already honorary cariocas.

We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other, and can't wait to make our commitment to one another official and celebrate with you all!