Martha Marotta and Brandee Bice
M: 25; vegan 2.5 years; hometown Vancouver, WA
B: 24; vegan 2.5 years; hometown Vancouver, WA
B: “I was captain of my dance team senior year.”
M: “She was in colorguard and I was in marching band.”
B: “My brother was friends with Martha first, and they were pretty close. We always like to say that I stalked Martha. I had a big crush on her.”
M: “I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought she was a friend and she thought otherwise. So we dated for a couple of days and then I broke up with her—and that was my senior year, her junior year. We stayed friends, almost every day there was a rehearsal or some type of competition or Friday night football. We saw each other a lot and kept in contact outside of that, too.
“The following year I asked her to prom. We weren’t dating at the time, but I asked her because she went through some crappy relationships and I thought she deserved better.
And then prom night happened and I didn’t ask her out, and she cried because she thought I would. But I had everything planned the next day. They had a competition and I was going with some friends.”
B: “Her friend was like 'Hey guys, let’s go outside' We were talking and eventually I turned around, and Martha was standing there with a shoebox full of rose petals and on the top was a note that said 'Will you be my girlfriend?' and that was it.”
M: “We got engaged in February, and that was over the top, too, but that’s what she likes. You can find a video on Facebook. It has close to 40,000 views. We were doing a flash mob around veganism. It was around Valentine’s Day. I didn’t pick the date because Valentine’s Day but because the event was set up and we had photographers and videographers. I didn’t have to hide anything because she knew it would be a public event. There were like 100 people singing and incorporating animals into the love circle of compassion. In the end, I went up with the mic and called her up and she had no clue what was going on. Then I proposed.”