It wasn't romantic, but it worked.

Michael Ellis needed to jump-start his car. Linda Kaneshige, who was interning at the pharmacy where he worked, agreed to help. He bought her a sandwich and offered to help her with a paper she had to write on diabetes.

Some weeks and a couple of rounds of Trivial Pursuit later, the two become a couple. A few months later, they moved into an apartment in Stockton, Calif.

"It's been a blur," said Ellis, 28, who teaches at a trade school nearby. "We didn't really have a first date. It sounds kinda weird, but we just sort of starting living together."

Being together just felt right to them, right from the start. In fact, just months into dating, Ellis said he knew he would marry her.

"When my father first met her, he asked me, 'What's going on with this girl? Do you want to marry her?' " Ellis said. "And I said, 'Yes, I think I do.' "

A year later, on their second trip to Hawai'i, Ellis decided it was time. While Kaneshige, who was born and raised in Pearl City, was helping her girlfriend with her wedding, Ellis headed to Tiffany & Co. at Ala Moana Center to buy an engagement ring. He proposed that night over dinner at Imanas Tei Restaurant in Mo'ili'ili.

"Was it impulsive? Yes and no," Ellis said. "I knew in the back of my mind, but I didn't know how I was going to do it. But I figured if the opportunity presented itself, I'd do it."

But Kaneshige wasn't surprised at all by the impromptu proposal that night.

"I knew he was up to something," said Kaneshige, 27, a pharmacist in Stockton. "At dinner he was saying he couldn't leave his jacket in the car. So I knew. He was acting all weird."

They had planned their wedding for May 2004. But a car accident the week before Christmas 2003 put the couple back financially. Kaneshige's VW Beetle was totaled and the stress of their financial situation was overwhelming. So despite having hired vendors and paid deposits, they decided to postpone the wedding for another year.

"I was going through enough stress," Kaneshige said. "It actually turned out really well."

Kaneshige wanted to get married near the ocean but away from the crowds of Waikiki. She remembered being a bridesmaid in a wedding at a Waikiki hotel and noticing tourists on the beach stopping to watch. She wasn't into that.

"I just remember this one old man who was hanging over the fence with his shirt off," she said, laughing. "I was thinking, I don't want all these people staring at me."

The couple got married June 11 at the oceanfront Bayer Estate off Kalaniana'ole Highway in 'Aina Haina. Their reception was at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawaii with about 100 guests. Nowhere near Waikiki.

"There was one surfer who paddled out during our ceremony," Kaneshige added. "But that's it."

Kaneshige and Ellis now live in their own three-bedroom, two-story house in Vallejo, Calif. This is the third place they've shared in four years.

If they're not traveling — they just got back from a weekend in New York, where they saw the Broadway hit "Spamalot" — they're watching a lot of TV. She's hooked on "Desperate Housewives," he takes in San Francisco Giants games.

So has married life changed their relationship, now approaching the five-year mark?

"For me, it's not different," Kaneshige said. "I knew we'd always be together anyway. Now, it's official."