Maninder and Jonathan
November 7 & 8, 2025
Columbus, OH
Please join Maninder and Jonathan
November 7 & 8 2025
As we celebrate our lives together!
Mani’s Story
Mani was born and raised in New Delhi, where a childhood fascination with airplanes, rockets, and anything that could fly took hold. His passion was so unstoppable that he soon exhausted the local toy store supply, spending countless hours collecting and building model aircraft and spacecraft.
That love for flight stayed with him into adulthood. Mani moved to the U.S. to pursue aerospace engineering at the University of Minnesota, ultimately earning his doctorate. After graduation, he joined the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio—a pivotal move that not only for his career but also led him to meet one of the most important person in his life.
Recently, Mani made a career change, transitioning from his role at the Air Force to an exciting position at NASA. There, he is helping design future space stations and contributing to lunar exploration missions.
Fun Fact: Mani is an avid traveler and trip planner for friends and family. To date, he has visited 12 countries, explored 36 U.S. states, and checked off 24 of the 56 national parks in the lower 48.
Jonathan’s Story
Jonathan grew up in Marion, Ohio, with an early passion for design and architecture — a love first expressed through countless hours building with LEGO® bricks, a pastime he still enjoys today. He went on to attend The Ohio State University, earning his Bachelor’s degree in Architecture in 2008.
Graduating during the economic downturn, Jonathan pivoted into interior design, where he combined his architectural training with a keen eye for style and detail. Over the years, he has honed his expertise in hotel interior design, creating spaces that are both functional and inspiring. In 2023, Jonathan took the leap to start his own design business. Taking control of his future and his time.
Fun Fact: Jonathan is musically gifted with a beautiful singing voice. You can usually tell he’s in a great mood when you hear him humming or singing along to background music — even if he’s improvising the lyrics!
Our Relationship
We first met in December 2019, when a mutual friend set us up on a blind date. Both of us were hesitant — in fact, we nearly cancelled. By pure chance, we crossed paths the night before our scheduled coffee date. Needless to say, we found each other amusing enough to entertain the date.
Over the past six years, we’ve stood by each other’s side through life’s highs and lows — celebrating exciting career changes and navigating solemn losses. As cliché as it may sound, we are best friends, trusted confidants, and, at times, a source of occasional frustration for one another.
We love exploring the world together, sharing each journey as a new chapter in our story. Our favorite getaway magic trick? Disappearing from Columbus and reappearing in a National Park. So far, we’ve discovered 15 of these incredible places together, and as we step into this new chapter, we’re excited to see the rest of them!
The Proposal
We’d been talking about marriage for quite some time, and Mani had imagined — and thoroughly overthought — countless versions of the proposal, from a romantic beach in Italy to a quiet moment on a hiking trail. Jonathan, however, had his own plan in mind. During a Thanksgiving trip to Arches National Park, while Mani was distracted gazing at the stars and snapping photos (see the exact picture above), Jonathan quietly dropped to one knee and beat him to the punch!