Move-in day, freshman year of college at Occidental. Marilena and her mom walked into Adriana’s room, Pauley 337, bickering in Italian as Adriana set up the princess bed. Her parents threw a quilt down, and promptly abandoned her. As the second-born child, she didn’t quite get the attention she deserved, even with her perfectly blonde hair, and subsequently spent the next week of preseason soccer camp with Adriana’s parents eating bad Italian food and making runs to Target for essentials, like fans for their air conditioning-less room, in Los Angeles, in August.

 

It was honestly kind of like love at first sight — followed by four years rooming together at Oxy, four years of coordinated Halloween costumes, coordinated semesters abroad in Europe, and now apartments four blocks away from each other in San Francisco.

 

As I write this, it’s actually somewhat surprising this is the blurb for my maid of honor, and not my wife…

In the realm of sibling rivalries, Morgan and Miles battled for athletic supremacy. From backyard baseball with Gary, to mini-hoop 1 on 1, their competitions knew no bounds, only blood, sweat, and somebody in tears. But brotherly love is not just the city where Morgan’s rather unlucky sports teams compete; it is also a cliche that rings very true in this family. Morgan’s success for the Occidental tigers soccer team was the impetus for Miles’ many trips down to Eagle Rock, and he hosted the fateful party where Miles and Adri met. 

 

And despite some initial false starts with a coral propagation business funded by Miles that returned exactly 0 dollars, “Captain” Mo is emerging as a world renowned marine wildlife photographer and biologist earning his PhD at Boston University and traveling the world’s oceans. His big brother couldn’t be prouder. Now, as Best Man, he brings his aquatic expertise to the wedding, making a splash and ensuring a memorable celebration. 

Perhaps it was always fated for Meredith and Adriana to become sisters, what with the former’s love of fashionable blazers, and the latter’s 9 years spent attending The Bush School, home of the “Blazers.” Or maybe it was the first impression Meredith made, meeting Adriana while dressed as a scuba master complete with old-school dive helmet.

 

And while quality time to hang out has been somewhat hard to come by living on opposite coasts, there’ve been plenty of great memories made already. From sushi in New York City to steak-frites in Paris, New Year’s Eve on Orcas Island to marathon spectating (kind of) in Boston, the eldest Bennett-Smith and youngest (only) Bucceri are looking forward to many more gatherings to come.

It’s not so easy to find the exact beginning of Miles and Adam’s friendship. Some say it was a basketball game on Dellmar Court, others swear it must have been on the Stanford Golf Course. Most agree it was hard to tell, because Miles was somehow permanently around the Stanford athletic department offices from the moment he graduated in 2013. Regardless, the 10 years have been a blur of nothing but good, clean, fun — golf trips to Scottsdale and Napa, stops for roadside Bonzai plants and DQ Blizzards, a surprise ticket to the Super Bowl. 

 

Throw in 2 glorious years as roommates enjoying Los Alto’s finest Colonnade amenities, before Annie and Adri both entered the picture (within a month of each other!) and declared that the bachelor pad days were over. It’s been a heck of a run (for everyone except Adam’s White Sox), with only the best yet to come. 

Though Micaela (without an h) spent two years at Occidental at the same time as Adriana, their paths did not cross much -

Micaela was busy with her (fake) sorority, Alpha, while Adriana was busy with her (chemistry) fraternity, AXS.

 

But Micaela has been there since the very beginning of Adriana and Miles’ relationship, squished together in the back seat of a late-night Uber to Jack in the Box on the night of the fateful Halloween Party at Jailhouse.

 

They share a love of trash TV on Bravo, French pastries, gossip, and making fun of Miles’ occasionally-odd communication style. It’s bound to make for a perfect sisterly bond.

In one of the great failures of Miles’ life, he has yet to take Alan up on a long-standing offer to enjoy the party of all parties sneaking into the winner’s paddock at Churchill Downs. Miles does believe he’ll get there one day, he’s just following Alan’s lead and playing the long game — slow and steady, much like their friendship. There’ve been plenty of rounds of golf at The Ranch, hours in the football stadium press box at Stanford, trips to South Bend, the Rose Bowl, and a silent disco at the EA Holiday Party.

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Like many of the other groomsmen, Alan has Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation roots. Unlike the others, Alan can in fact claim to be Miles’ oldest DAPER friend, a meaningful distinction. With Alan, Leigh, Andi and Tucky now living the Vandy Boys good life in Nashville, in-person meetups are rarer than anyone would like, but the life advice, care and consideration flows freely through FaceTime, all delivered in that sweet sweet southern drawl.

Michaela (with an h), made a remarkable first impression on fourth-grade Adriana with her literacy prowess, churning out entire novels as the rest of the class submitted picture books. It wasn’t long before the two were fast friends, state champions on the girls’ soccer team, co-managers of a slightly less successful boys’ team, and consistent slumber party participants.

 

When high school graduation rolled around, Michaela was supposed to go to college in Miami, but changed her mind at the last minute to attend Occidental because she couldn’t imagine four years without Adriana (or at least that’s what Adriana likes to tell herself). A post-college move to the Big Apple put Michaela’s big brain to use in a Columbia Biology Lab, but also meant the two were separated by 3,000 miles on opposite coasts.

 

Two years later, yearning to return to the good ole days of shared lentils and basically shared anything Adriana cooked, Michaela returned to the Best Coast and settled into San Francisco just a few blocks up the street. Just as it should be.

We’re not sure if it’s a popular game in Switzerland, but Jenga was all the rage at Miles and Brett’s favorite Redwood City watering hole, The Underground (RIP). Many trips solidified yet another friendship borne of Miles’ inability to stay away from Stanford Athletics after graduating. 

 

Though Brett eventually found the fast-paced lifestyle of Redwood City a bit much (and opportunities to be both closer to family and the sweltering sun of Wrigley Field’s bleachers), they’ve found plenty of ways to meet in the middle. A trip to Omaha for the College World Series, the annual ET Moore Birthday Bash, Illinois football games, Brett’s wedding to Grace — there’s always an occasion to stop in Champaign. 

Grandma of our Oxy quintet, Molly is a Seattle (ish) native, but didn’t cross paths with Adriana until both were matriculating in SoCal, specifically when they each committed a classic Berkus House / Berkus Hall mix-up on freshman move-in day (perhaps an inauspicious foreshadowing…)

 

The two would go on to share many things - an obsession with ice cream and demiurgic ways to consume it inside of other sugary confections, a medically-concerning clicking noise inside their encephalon toward the end of arduous exercise that only they can discern, and hours spent deliriously discussing raw data for the Biostats class (along with the Best Man, Morgan).

 

Now Molly herself has probably only understood a third of this bio, even as she prepares to graduate from her final year of PA school in 2024. But for the rest of you with more robust vocabularies, we hope this helps you get to know our dear friend Moll-sack.

August 23, 2013. Elliott Heath replied to an email thread about fantasy football and declared to the league that he “looked forward to taking your money.” 10 years after the first officially recorded correspondence between Miles and Elliott, the joke is now squarely back on the Nike Product Line Manager, as whatever winnings he may have earned will surely be spent several times over in making the trip to Switzerland. 

 

That’s actually probably just fine with E, a devoted Packers fan and one of the most genuine humans around. Miles was a dedicated fan of Elliott’s collegiate and professional running career, and somehow tricked E into coaching him to very minor age-group success on the roads over the past decade. Now, hopefully, the scales are slightly more balanced, as Miles takes tremendous pride in his role as Bowerman Track Club booster and special assistant to Director Heath at the BTC Summer Running Camp.

Showing up to Occidental as Adriana and Marilena’s third freshman roommate, “CC” happily took the unclaimed top bunk and unpacked a suitcase full of Jersey flair — namely cold shoulder tops and statement necklaces.

 

Throughout college, Adriana was generous with fashion advice, and CC with her cheerful company - especially to assuage Adriana’s deep fear of descending three flights of stairs to do laundry alone in the basement.

 

A star lacrosse player in college with a big appetite for breakfast, and now a college lacrosse coach, we hope CC is looking forward to the spread at Guarda Val, both because she was on a first-name basis with the Oxy chefs and because Adriana takes great pride in introducing her to new and delicious foods, like watermelon as a 19-year old. Sierra Slack is always, simply living.

Late night chats over ice cream and sprinkles, too many sleepovers to count, hours and hours spent in the gym or at the baseball diamond, in the Cave. Too many good memories, it’s impossible to know where to start — Michael and Miles became fast friends as freshmen in high school, and the bromance has never really stopped. Though Miles enjoyed the general upper hand in feats of athletic strength, Michael kept him grounded with an unbelievably sharp wit and insatiable appetite for analyzing sports, history, and politics.

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Michael shipped off to college in New Orleans, and then to DC to become a senator’s right hand man, and then LA and Israel to become a rabbi (mazel tov!), making in-person hangouts a tad more difficult. But even now, with Michael on a new adventure in Dallas, it is a friendship which snaps back to inside jokes and true admiration in an instant.