OUR
Story
Joseph Walter Maki
Michelle Alicia Millar
Joe is an offbeat individualist who loves things that are beautiful, amusing or delicious. He is the Lead UI Developer at Bison, a fintech startup. At home he is an avid cook, and enjoys playing Magic and hanging out with Mickey. Joe volunteers at Resilient Coders where he shares his knowledge of computer programming.
Joe is 28 years old and was born and raised in
East Longmeadow, Massachusetts.
Mickey is a passionate dreamer who loves freedom, justice and laughter. She recently joined Wildflower Schools as a Boston Partner where she will launch micro-Montessori schools in the Greater Boston area. She spends her free time chilling with Joe, taking naps and developing Woke Girls, which is a book series and doll line addressing the needs of girls who face great adversity. Mickey is 30 years old and was born and raised in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
How we met
Joe moved to Boston in Fall 2012 to join Bison as a front end developer. Mickey moved to Boston in Fall 2013 to pursue a joint MBA/MPP at Harvard. In late fall 2014, she took on a temporary, part time role at Bison which allowed her to meet Joe. Mickey quickly found that the banter among the developers was incredibly entertaining and she began to chime in with her own ridiculous comments.
Mickey was drawn to Joe's sense of humor and absolutely adored his sweater style, so she invited him and his colleague/roommate, Viktor, to a holiday party. Joe was pleasantly surprised by Mickey's appreciation for his jokes and thought she was quite the character herself--as long as she didn't actually believe in the hollow earth theory she'd sent him links about. Joe accepted her invitation and he and Viktor came to the party.
Before Joe had to escort Viktor home, Joe and Mickey had a fantastic conversation about the implications of racial bias and Albert Einstein's views on race. Mickey knew then that it would be worthwhile to get to know Joe better.
After Mickey's time at Bison ended, Joe asked her out on their first date at a local restaurant. At that last minute, Mickey cancelled and asked Joe to come to her apartment to make toothpaste from scratch instead. The toothpaste made Joe's gums bleed, but he didn't complain. Who needs gums when you have love?
From that point forward their relationship took off. They had several more dates, daily video calls when Mickey spent the summer away at an internship, a trip to Cancun, and then Mickey moved in in Fall 2015. On a cozy Saturday in October 2016, two years after they met, Joe and Mickey were doing their favorite thing, just hanging out together, when Joe got down on one knee and proposed. Mickey said yes!
Joe and Mickey decided they wanted to get married in a way that aligned with their personalities and minimize unnecessary stressors. This led them to the decision to officially marry in the Boston City Hall in the presence of their parents, then have a second, private ceremony on a beach in Barbados. On August 17, 2017, Joe and Mickey tied the knot. They are eager to start this next chapter of their lives as Mr. and Mrs. Maki!
