“Maybe we should give this a try”

Words carefully chosen by Youssef and send via a text message to Grace around the early hours after midnight in Amsterdam.

Youssef was born and raised in Brussels and from his childhood on always had a thing for numbers. It explains his current job positioning as a Financial Manager over at Cisco Systems. Youssef doesn’t just love his job he’s a determined man that understands his responsibility to the company very well. According to Grace he’s infatuated but not obsessed with his job. “Look him up on Facebook”, she says. Indeed, Youss (short for Youssef) goes by the name of Yousco System. Oh, let’s not forget to mention that his job and anything else in his life only comes second to the sweet, wonderful and definitely gorgeous Grace.

Grace was born in England and luckily for her she inherited the cooking skills of her Italian Father, who odd enough goes by the name of…well, he told us we may call him: “Bond, James Bond”. Grace is as sweet, kind and generous as they come. Thinking back on our experience with her the best way to describe Grace is that she is a…she’s a smile, a bright and contagious smile. Grace too works for Cisco but about 3 months ago she moved to another company. Human Resources is her thing, “how do we keep our employees happy and compensate them for all their hard work”, quoting her. That’s so Grace!

So Grace and Youssef both work for Cisco. And that’s where our story begins…

Grace moved to Amsterdam in 2007 as an Intern over at Cisco. As part of company policy she was introduced to each department and her internship for the next six months was going to be under the guidance and supervision of Youss. Just like most things in life, things take time to fully mature… It took many years, many trips, countless moments filled with laughter and amazing food before Grace and Youss realised that what they felt for each other ran much deeper that regular friends. It was during a housewarming party that Grace saw, from the corner of her eye, how Youss’s friends where trying to hook Youss up with another girl. For Grace it was the perfect moment to seize the moment. She walked up to the girl, pulled her up by the arms and dragged her over to meet some friends of her own. A gusty move that would buy Grace enough time to finally approach Youss and talk about their feelings.

Later that night, after Grace had long gone home, and after much pondering, Youss sends her a text message “Maybe we should give this a try”.

Grace and Youss are generous and wonderful human beings and to have been a part of their wedding at the Santa Barbara Beach Resort is something we still cherish until this very day.

Thank you kindly Grace and Youss. We will see you in December for sure!

Much love, Claudia & Miguel.