Today we’d like to introduce you to Raymond Laquindanum and Monique Santos. They and their team shared their story with us below:
Ray & Monique met online through YouTube and Instagram. Ray lived in the Bay Area, and Monique lived in LA. Their contact would consist of endless FaceTime, text messages, and phone calls 372 miles away. April 23rd, 2018, was the day they officially met in person. A virtual relationship through social media turned into an in-person reality. With the 6-hour drives and 60-minute flights twice a month, the relationship was certainly taking its toll. The best moments became the ones they spent together, only to be longing for the next visit. Everything in between became miserable, with the only excitement in their lives being when Ray visited. They dated for 8 months, and then Monique gave Ray an ultimatum. Move to LA to pursue this relationship, or end it only to wonder what would have been. Ray made the biggest decision of his life by packing not only his bags but also his life in the Bay Area to see this relationship through and be together with the love of his life. From that day forward, the rest was history. They were inseparable, creating a couple’s Instagram page with 42,000+ followers, a YouTube channel with 70,000+ subscribers, and 207,000+ TikTok family members strong. They create relatable, fun, and entertaining relationship videos that everyone can resonate with. Not only did they create their brand from the ground up, but their viewership witnessed their relationship blossom from meeting the first time to getting engaged and soon being a married couple exactly five years later from the day they met. Although the relationship’s development is ongoing, the audience can laugh, be entertained, and learn real-life lessons through their content. But most importantly, they were a long-distance relationship that worked. This is their love story. Let the next chapters continue to unravel.
Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
Our love story faced many challenges. With the collision of modern-day society and conservative Filipino traditions, our investment into making our relationship work was immense. Even though Ray moved down to LA, the home he resided in was 45 minutes away from Monique’s home, and with him working a Full-Time Management career and Monique working as a Hair/Makeup Cosmetologist/Event Planner; we were only able to see each other a couple of times a week. At the time, we needed someone in our family in the industry to follow suit. So we had yet to learn how to strategically go about social media besides consistently posting daily. With our limited time with each other, we decided to build our own business and brand so that one day we could become Full-Time Content Creators and make a living working together. Despite all the adversities and naysayers, Ray and Monique were all in! Our road to becoming social media content creators was smoother than we thought. In the Filipino culture, Social Media was not considered a career path. Although our family members disapproved of us venturing into an untraditional realm, we had our vision of the future we wanted to live in. We had the pressure from our parents to achieve success quickly and the pressure of pursuing a career that could have shown more rapid results. Since we are the first in our family to take the road not taken, we were still trying to figure everything out. We started doing some food mukbang videos, transitioning to pranks and then niched down to relatable couple lifestyle videos.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We are known for being Social Media Content Creators. We are most proud that we can represent more of the Filipino population that needs to improve in social media. The content we create resonates with our audience in a way that connects them as a community. We can bring people together in relatability and show that situations people go through are more common than we think. We can open the door of conversation to everyday circumstances that are not always discussed. We enjoy bridging the gap for our viewers to laugh, entertain, and empathize together.
We love to hear about any fond memories you have from growing up.
Monique’s favorite childhood memory was enjoying the simple things in life, just the simple things of trying to watch PBS kids on a small tv screen while trying to configure the antennas with my twin and older sister. Falling asleep to my mom’s voice while she fanned and sang to my sisters and me; since we had no air conditioning didn’t have much growing up, but at the time, I thought and felt that I had it all. Family bonding and making the most of what we had at the time will forever be the moments I cherish.
Ray’s favorite childhood memory was going to midnight mass during Christmas and celebrating the holiday at my auntie’s house in San Francisco with all our family in attendance. We always had the tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve, attending midnight mass, returning to open gifts, and spending quality time together as a big family. Now everyone is scattered across the world, and we no longer have that tradition.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/official_raynique/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm7xUWq4iCmWhMn3aQqQdQA
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ray_mo423
