Saratoga alumni fall in love on Valentine’s

When Jason Chou laid his eyes on Dora Chua at the Chinese language placement test his freshman year, he didn’t realize they would one day become husband and wife. They at long last exchanged vows this past September at Saratoga Springs.

The two met in 2004 when Chua transferred to Saratoga High from Los Gatos High. They became a couple on Valentine’s Day of their senior year when he asked her to be his girlfriend.

Jason, then ASB president, and Dora, then one of the editors of the 2006 yearbook, continued dating when they went to colleges that were only 45 miles apart: Dora attended Princeton and Jason the University of Pennsylvania. 

During college, Dora would take three trains and walk an hour each way to attend his acapella shows, and Jason would do the same to visit her eating club parties. 

“We both wanted to make sure we had the chance to live freely as college students and young adults,” Dora said. “But over time, it became clear that we were both very committed to one another.”

During five more years of long-distance dating, they stayed in touch through calling cards, Skype and “embarrassingly sappy emails.” 

Following college and a couple of years working,  Dora decided to become a doctor and began to attend medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Jason pursued a career design and education. In 2015, they finally returned to the Bay Area, with Dora, now as Dr. Chua, doing her residency in anesthesiology for three years at Stanford.

“To some, a long relationship might seem static and stifling, but to us, we’ve just fallen in love with different versions of each other again and again,” Dora said. “Through time we’ve seen each other grow and allowed each other to change, while also developing faith in the core parts of each other that will always remain the same.”

Jason asked Dora to senior prom in the middle of the quad by taping himself inside a large TV box. When he proposed to her years later, he recreated the promposal by taking Dora back to the school and taping himself into a large refrigerator box in the middle of the quad with a sign saying, “Let’s get married?” They also incorporated their prom theme into the wedding invitations they sent to friends last year.

Jason and Dora note how lucky they are in how they approached their relationship by keeping it simple and “being true to ourselves and true to one other.”

“We have many shared friends and old memories. It's nice to be with somebody who has a great sense of where you came from and how you came to be — someone who can appreciate your childhood accomplishments but also keep you grounded in all of your embarrassing and less-than-cool moments,” Dora said.

Now the couple plans to stay in the Bay Area in hopes of starting a family as they continue to enjoy each other’s sense of humor, ambition, big-heartedness and dedication to friends and family.