Jane was born in Atlanta, Georgia, a sprawling southern metropolis with a lot of trees and a lot of cars and some really great restaurants. Her late father, James, was an architect, her mother Sharon is a semi-retired interior designer, and her younger brother Madison works for IDEO, is married to the lovely Dr. Charmaine, and has an adorable baby named Kepler.

Jane went to Davidson College in North Carolina and studied anthropology, moved back to Atlanta to wait tables at a pizza restaurant, and saved enough money to travel around the world with her friend Ashley and study painting in Italy. She moved to New York in 1995 and studied art briefly, until she discovered the internet. She interned at, designed for, creative directed, and co-founded various internet companies for seven years. She now consults, paints, sells beautiful furniture, and always learns.

Darko was born in Zürich, Switzerland, a clean and lovely city, small enough so that you can walk everywhere, and so that everyone knows your business. His father, Zvonko, is originally from Croatia and worked for Swissair for many years, and his late mother Marlene was from the Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. Darko and his late brother, Marcel, were trouble-makers from birth, falling out of trees onto fences and skipping school constantly. At age 15, Darko became the Swiss National Fencing Champion and was an alternate on the Swiss Olympic team.

Also at 15, Darko (who could fly Swissair for free since his dad worked there) hopped a flight to New York (without telling anyone he was going) and fell in love with it, despite the fact that he had no money, no place to stay, and spoke no English whatsoever. After that life-changing week he returned each year to buy fancy sneakers, until finally at age 30 he moved to NYC for good.

Darko owns and runs a small 3-D animation and video post-production company called Frame Eleven. In 2002 a Swiss girl transferred from the original Frame Eleven in Zürich to work for Darko in New York. Her name was Christina, and she had been in the US several years before, as an exchange student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. There she had met Jane’s brother Madison and their friend Alyssa, and when she arrived in New York Alyssa suggested she ask Jane if she had an extra room in her apartment. Jane did and Christina moved in.

For the next year Christina slyly and repeatedly, but not overwhelmingly, suggested to both Jane and Darko that they might be of interest to each other. Darko, though, never left the office at the time, and so they did not meet. Finally, on 1 July 2003, although Jane had had a really crappy day and was determined to sit at home in front of the TV, Christina convinced her to come to dinner with Darko and his roommate Sasha. Despite the fact that Darko ordered a plate of raw meat for dinner (and Jane is a fish-eating vegetarian), the evening did not go badly.

On 11 July Christina and Jane joined Darko and some other friends at a bar, and after a lot of amazing conversation and a very sweet first kiss Darko walked Jane home as the sun was coming up. At that point Jane was already utterly sure the Darko was The One, even though the day before she hadn’t really believed that could actually happen.

Okay, now we fast-forward a bit, because there’s a part in there about six months later where Darko, overworked and worn out, realizes he isn’t quite ready for all this yet, and so Jane cries on the shoulders of her friends Christina, Alyssa, and Shannon for a few months, dates other people to try to get over it, and finally arrives back at peace with everything. At about that time Darko returns from a trip to Switzerland (to finally receive his U.S. Green Card) and a visit to his friends Maetti & Nathi there, now ready and hoping to try again. (Although actually Jane thinks this would never have happened had she not learned to play golf in the meantime ;)

Since September 2004 Jane & Darko have been amazingly happy together. They bought an apartment in the East Village in 2005, renovated it to great acclaim and moved into it in early 2006. They now live there with their two annoying cats, Grits & Kasha.

On 9 August 2007 (which, oddly enough, also happens to be Christina's birthday), Darko tried to convince Jane to go out for a really nice dinner somewhere, but she was tired from work and just wanted to get something easy at an Italian place in their neighborhood. Afterwards, back at home, the clouds and moonlight and sky were amazing, and Darko suggested they go to the roof for a glass of wine. Jane carried the chairs up and Darko came up a minute later, looking strangely nervous (and still she didn't figure it out!). Then he pulled out an amazing ring and asked her to marry him, and she cried and said yes, yes, yes.

As for the ring itself, Darko had designed it about 8 months before that, asked their friend Pablo to render it in 3-D, and sent the plans to a jeweler friend in Switzerland, Yves Péclard. Yves found a Swiss Alpine crystal, rock that came straight from a mountaintop, cut it and set it in white gold. He then gave it to their close friend Maetti, who then passed it on to their friend Tizia when she was visiting Zürich from New York, who then smuggled it back to the US on her finger, and passed it along to Darko. Jane could not be happier.

After a few days of just being completely happy and not thinking about much else at all, Jane & Darko started trying to figure out what kind of wedding they would have and most importantly, where it would be. They wanted it to be somewhere special, and Jane immediately thought of Frog Hollow. Jane's late Uncle Charles (her father's brother) and his partner Harold had designed and built an amazing home on the North Fork of Long Island years ago, and the Mount family had spent many happy weekends there with them, eating Charles' excellent neo-Southern food and having drinks out in the lovely backyard garden overlooking the lotus pond. Harold generously welcomed them to use the garden, and then the planning began in earnest.