The Story of Blithe & Scott

How We Met

Blithe and Scott met in the Fall of 2003. Scott was hired to design a sorority website for Alpha Xi Delta and Blithe was assigned the responsibility of maintaining the website, so she scheduled a meeting with Scott to go over the details. When they met, Scott learned that Blithe had lived in the same building and had been using his open wireless access point (one of the only ones at the time) all summer long. Blithe impressed Scott with her techie skills and the rest was history. Blithe and Scott have been together ever since.

Engagement Story

It's difficult to surprise someone with an engagement when you have been with them for over five years. Some how Scott managed to do just that.

On a Thursday afternoon in May 2009, Scott asked Blithe to cancel all of her plans for the weekend but wouldn't tell her why. Friday night when Blithe got home from work, she noticed that Scott had taken their dog Nola and her bed and toys to stay with a friend for the night. When he returned he told Blithe that she needed to pack a bag for the weekend. He only told her that she would need to pack in a way that would meet TSA standards because they would be flying(!) somewhere. Blithe loves traveling, flying and even packing, so this was very exciting.

The next morning Scott and Blithe headed to the airport, with Blithe still unaware of their destination. When going through security, she finally learned that they would be headed to San Francisco for the weekend. As soon as they landed, Scott called a car rental company. This seemed odd to Blithe at the time but she went with the flow. They had to take a bus to a strange car parking lot to wait for the car to arrive. Again, this was very out of the ordinary.

It was when Blithe's favorite car (a Mercedes SLK) pulled up that Blithe knew that this was no average getaway weekend. She didn't know when it would happen but she knew something was up. They gleefully hopped in the car and headed North to eat, drink, and be merry in the Sonoma wine country.

After lunch they headed to the Gloria Ferrer champagne vineyard. The vineyard had an amazing lookout over the grape fields and the paused to take pictures before heading inside. Scott went back to the car to get the good camera while Blithe waited. When he returned he asked Blithe to take a picture of just him and handed her the camera. When she went to take the camera out of the case, she found a ring box instead! When she looked up, Scott was on one knee and asking her to marry him. Her answer was yes, of course.

Afterwards they went up to the vineyard to have a glass of their finest champagne (technically sparkling wine) and call their families. They also bought a bottle to take home and drink at the wedding. They spent the rest of the weekend floating on air. It included lots more wine, a hotel at Cavallo Point in the foothills next to the Golden Gate Bridge, a delicious fine dining experience, and lots of riding around in a really fun car. 

Blithe Elisse Casterline

Blithe was born October 23, 1983 in Corpus Christi, Texas. She spent the early years playing softball and climbing trees in Rockport, TX and moved to Port Aransas, TX for her high school years. Although she was known mostly for her math and science skills, Blithe was also the editor-in-chief of her school newspaper, played alto saxophone in the band, and starred as Shelby in the theatre's production of Steel Magnolias.  She continued to play softball and graduated as the valedictorian of Port Aransas High School in 2002.

For the next stage of her life, Blithe started her quest to become a professional chemist at Southwestern University. Blithe joined the Alpha Xi Delta women's fraternity and spent time as both the financial and the recruitment vice president. Little did she know that it would introduce her to the man that she would marry. When she wasn't tutoring someone or doing homework, Blithe was the president of the student chapter of the American Chemical Society. Even though Southwestern didn't have a varsity softball team while Blithe was attending, she did manage to play a few intramural games. 

After graduating from SU in three years, Blithe moved on to her graduate school career at the University of Southern California in the fall of 2005. Since passing her qualification exams, she has mostly been working in the lab and publishing papers. Blithe plans to graduate with her Ph.D. within the next year or so. Until then she is enjoying life in Southern California with Scott and their little dog. Oh, and she's still playing softball on the weekends. 

Scott Landon Rocher

Born on October 2, 1981, Scott was the first child for Marlene and Steve Rocher. He grew up in Southwest Houston attending Windsor Village elementary school with best man Salvo Lavis.

When he was 12, Scott began his middle school education at St. John's, a college preparatory school. After a short (failed) football career, he became involved in journalism, eventually becoming editor-in-chief of his school newspaper, The Review. His love of media and film helped motivate him to start a film club called Paradigm Pictures, which created a number of creative works during his high school years.

In 2000, he graduated and moved to Georgetown, Texas to attend Southwestern University. He started as a Computer Science major but with the help of Christine Kiessinger, Scott discovered the discipline of Communication Studies. He continued his film and journalism pursuits at Southwestern, starting a film club and helming The Megaphone newspaper for two years. He graduated in 2004 with Honors, creating a thesis film on Instant Messaging which is still used in some courses today (and features his fiance Blithe!)

After moving to Los Angeles in 2004, Scott worked as a Web Developer and Project Manager at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, an innovative research facility in Marina del Rey. In 2005, with the help of his friend Stewart King, Scott created The Black Stripe, a unique online social tool.

Since June 2007, Scott has worked as a Front End Engineer for Yahoo! Entertainment, helping build the next generation of global Movie and TV websites. At night and on weekends, he is watching USC football, hanging out with Blithe and his dog Nola, or often hacking away at The Photo Stream or BitsyBox, two of Scott's many entrepreneurial pursuits.