Wedding Party
Tiffany Kuan
Tiff and Hailey first met freshman year, when Hailey’s mom sent her baked goods with which to attract friends. Tiff repaid her brownie debts by restyling Hailey before her first-ever real date, nobly refusing to let her leave the dorm in a blazer and unbrushed hair.
Tiff has an endless list of surprising credentials, including video game beta tester, pop-up restaurant founder, and ex-CIA employee. As an ordained minister, she will be marrying Hailey and Jack at the altar.
zander morRell
Jack and Zander met before their first day of high school, during practices for a sport (football) they would both eventually drop. After sharing an absurd number of classes with Jack that first year, Zander succumbed to friendship.
A film buff, Zander worked at the 1920s-era Oriental Theater in Milwaukee, slipping Jack and Hailey free movie tickets when they lived in Wisconsin after college. He now lives in a hip neighborhood in Milwaukee, doing cool things, and works as a Business Analyst — which is cool, but provides way fewer perks to certain friends.
ariel hayward
Ariel and Hailey met on their first day of college, paired randomly as roommates. The next three years of cohabitation were voluntary, which says a lot about Ariel’s strength of character. We love Ariel’s spontaneity and adventurous spirit, which brought Hailey out of her shell.
Ariel is as comfortable on a trail in the wilderness as she is in a boardroom with a PowerPoint. This friendly Minnesotan likes to chat up everyone and their grandma.
Roshan Jayanti
Roshan and Jack chose each other as freshman-year roommates, following a personality test. In retrospect, spending time reaching out to their “matches” from the test feels fairly on-brand for both of them.
Roshan is a constant source of fun and thought-provoking conversations. He recently finished a product management role with a micro-finance startup, then started at Code for America on their criminal justice team. He somehow manages to find time to follow the NBA & Premier League quite closely.
Madelaine Behrens
Madelaine made becoming friends easy when she promptly knocked on every door of her USC dorm, demanding friendship. Lucky for Hailey, she was in Madelaine’s line of fire.
Madelaine is currently studying hard in med school, with a particular interest in infectious diseases. Know what else is infectious?? Her energy! We love her characteristic boldness and wild sense of humor. There is a high likelihood you’ll spot her on the dance floor.
matt burke
Matt and Jack met on the USC ultimate frisbee team, where Jack learned that Matt has both a mean throw and some hilarious deadpan. The friendship grew over lots of travel frisbee tournaments, plenty of all you-can-eat Korean BBQ, and hiking trips, including a New Zealand trip with Zander & Tyler.
Matt is currently pursuing a PhD at Cornell in Distributed Systems (computer science), which - based on Jack’s limited understanding of their conversations - is pretty much as complicated as it sounds.
allison toh
Hailey got to know (and love) Allison living across the hall from her in their senior year house. As a Hulu employee, Disney nerd, and social media savant, Allison smokes everyone on pop culture trivia questions.
A lover of travel and Google docs, Allison spearheads our annual reunions across the country. Wherever they go, Allison and Hailey make a point to find great lattes together, as they both appreciate an aesthetically pleasing coffee shop with good espresso. You will likely find Allison asking for the wifi at the wedding.
wAng Xiaojie
Jack and Wang got to know each other in college. An international student from Shanghai, Wang’s eloquence and quick wit put Jack to shame in both English and Chinese. Mercifully, he does not laugh when Jack practices the Mandarin he spent 4 years learning at USC. Wang has also been a gracious host & tour guide when Jack lived in Beijing and in Shanghai.
Wang will begin an MBA program at Harvard in the fall, meaning Jack will get to have him back in the US - East Coast, even! - for a couple years.
Erica Behrens
Hailey was lucky enough to follow Erica from LA to DC, where they grab coffee, take Toby on walks, and lounge around each other’s apartments weekly. Having studied Arabic and international relations, Erica now works in international development, though the only Arabic word she remembers is ‘Insha' allah.’
Over the years, Erica and Hailey have cultivated a particular brand of humor that consists of relentlessly making fun of each other. Sometimes, it makes others uncomfortable, but it makes them giggle.
Fun fact: Erica and Madelaine are fraternal twins. We like to pretend we get them mixed up, but we don’t.
Tyler Pullen
Jack met Tyler during his first week at USC, when they crossed paths on the fifth floor of their mega-nerdy dorm for dweebs (“honors students”). Jack followed Tyler to ultimate frisbee tryouts, then spent the next four years throwing a plastic plate around campus and becoming besties.
After USC, Tyler got his Master’s in Sustainable Construction at Stanford, and is now pursuing a PhD in Urban Planning at Berkeley. He is so dumb. But against all odds, he has traveled the world and made many friends along the way. We feel lucky to be two of them.
toby koppa-sayegh
Jack and Hailey adopted Toby in March of 2019, and they credit him with saving their sanity throughout COVID. Toby loves humans, other dogs, street food (as in, not particularly edible things off the street), and literally everything else.
If he can make it down the aisle in a straight line, Toby will bear our wedding rings. Fingers crossed. This plan highly subject to change.