Fall 1998

Chris and I first met at Finley Park in downtown Columbia, SC.  That is the first place I saw his face.  It was a summer concert series.  I was friends with his roommate and was there with him.   (No, I was not dating the roommate – I was fresh off of a break-up).

 

Later, I was at their place waiting on the roommate so we could go to a movie or something.  I had an opportunity to sit and chat with Chris while Josh was getting ready.  Chris was talking about his mother and sister and I could tell he loved them very much and would do anything to take care of them.

I remember thinking, “Wow, whoever he marries is going to be a lucky girl.”

 

It wasn’t long before we became fast friends.  He’ll tell you that he felt sorry for me.  Most of my friends had graduated the previous year and moved.  Likely story, but I’ll take it.  

Thanksgiving rolled around.  We had been hanging out for a couple of months at that point.  People would ask each of us, “Are you two dating?”  I’d say, “Oh, no, I’d never date someone like Chris, he’s just not my type – but we’re good friends!”

(It’s ok to laugh.  God has such a sense of humor.)

Chris would respond in a typical guy-fashion, “Nah.”

 

Back to Thanksgiving.  I drove home to Kentucky (God’s Country, in my book).

I missed Chris.  Oh, no, you don’t get it.  I missed him.  What was wrong with me?  I called him and we talked on the phone every night during Thanksgiving break for at least a couple of hours at a time.  (He doesn’t do that trick anymore.  Apparently, he only does phone tricks like that when trying to woo women.  Ha!)

I drove back to South Carolina to begin Operation: BoyfriendChris.  I couldn’t wait to see him.   I called him with every excuse I could.

“Can you come listen to my pieces before I have to play for jury?”

“What are you doing for dinner tonight?”  (Such a gentleman, he always paid!)

 

We exchanged a flurry of emails.  He was so cute in them and signed them with roses that looked like this:

–<–<–@

(Why is it that romance like this has to be re-learned once the wedding band hits the finger?)

I still have all those emails.  I’m an electronic pack rat.

He would come get me and I would wait in anticipation for the deep rumble of his big white truck as it came around the corner.  We still have that truck.  Men aren’t sentimental about much, but don’t ask them to get rid of their big white trucks.

I’ll admit to a small amount of sentimentality for that truck, too.

 

After about a week of intense work to get him to notice that I liked him for morethanafriend because I’m too much of a chicken to be direct, he finally noticed.  I very nearly had to climb in his lap and kiss him.

Oh, wait, that’s just about what I did.

So that was the first week of December 1998.  By New Years Eve 1998, we had decided to get married.  I began planning the wedding without an “official” engagement.  

Super Bowl Sunday 1999.  Chris comes to visit me while I was monitoring rooms for a piano festival at the music school.  He was grinning like a cheshire cat, a certain ring burning a whole in his pocket.  We agreed he’d come to get me later that night so we could go to a Super Bowl party our church’s college ministry was hosting later that evening.

Apparently the ring burned right through his pocket and seered his leg.

He arrived at my apartment and here is how the proposal went.

Brace yourself.

Tissues ready?

He arrived and I was ready to go.  I turned out the lights to my bedroom and went to the door.  I greeted him, the same him who was grinning like a cheshire cat.  I realized I forgot my jacket and turned around to retrieve it from my now-darkened bedroom.  I picked it up off the chair or bed or something, and bumped into Chris.

“Oh!  Didn’t realize you followed me!”

“Here, I got something for you.”

He fishes the ring box out of his pocket.  Hands it to me and walks out.  

Whoa.  A ring!  We’re official!

But wait…

Isn’t a question supposed to accompany said ring?

I love him anyways.  I made him “ask” me in the truck, even though we were already “engaged.”  Some people thought we were crazy because we’d only been dating for a couple of months (little did they know we’d decided to get married a month previous!).   I say to that, ten years later, we’re still having a blast, we love being married and we look forward to a whole lot more.   Prescribed times for dating and/or engagements work for some, but not for us.  The question that came to our minds?

Why wait?

 

We were married four months after that “official” engagement on May 22, 1999.   Five months after the “unofficial engagement.”  Six months after we started dating. (Yes, we only dated a month before we were engaged to be married.) About eight months after we met.  

May 22, 2009