Tuesday, February 17, 2015

How I Met My Match


I'm linking up with Andrea for Show & Tell Tuesdays all about how I met my husband!!  I love thinking back through our love story so when I saw this topic, I knew to mark my calendar.  Read below through our journey of meeting each other, almost SEVEN years ago (woah!), how we reunited in life, how we got engaged, married and where we are today!  It's a nice little memory to have our little story listed out in one spot.
 Thank goodness for holidays right?! Thanks to St. Patrick's Day, I can easily remember the day I met my husband.  It was love at first sight, sort of, not really.  My girlfriends and I rushed off to a St. Patrick's Day party at one of the fraternity houses right after classes.  Shortly after we got there, I noticed Derek and thought he was so cute.  I should have known then that he'd be my husband since I can remember little details like what I wore, what he wore, seeing him, etc. but if you would have asked me if he was the one I'd end up with back then I would have said, heck no.

One of my friends said I couldn't talk to him because he was already with another girl (boy moves quick! He had just transferred in a week or so before) - fast forward a couple months to spring and I was finally "talking" to the cute boy from the party and completely smitten.  This was my spring semester of my freshman year - I was 19 and he was 22.

Fast forward through all four years of college (he was there even in Providence after I finished school and came back to visit because he stayed up there for a job) and we never went more than a couple months without talking - sometimes as friends, sometimes as more, sometimes not liking each other at all.

 I SO wanted to date Derek but he was a typical college guy and didn't want to be serious (AMEN! because if we would have dated in college we A. probably wouldn't be together now and B. probably wouldn't have so many close friendships with our college friends as we do now so, Thanks for never dating me, Derek!!) In typical college relationship form, I deleted and readded his number to my phone so many times that as my maid of honor said in her speech at our wedding "If I had a dollar for every time Tina deleted Derek's number and asked me for it again - they probably could have extended their honeymoon an extra week).
Eeeek! What babies we are here
Derek and I talked off an on a little here and there after college but not a ton.  Early in 2012 I had seen a picture of him out with some of our friends and couldn't get him out of my mind again - I thought I had finally cured myself of my "Derek crush" but I guess I was wrong.

In May I went to Disney World with my bestie, Sam (and future Maid of Honor) and when we saw the Fairy Godmother (Cinderella is one of my most favorite movies) and her wishing well, I of course wished for love and half jokingly wished for Derek.  I also told Sam about my feelings, over quite a few drinks.

A couple weeks later, I reached out to Derek which didn't go perfectly but a week later we were talking again non-stop and had plans to meet up since he was living in NJ and I was in PA at the time and the rest is history!

Our dating time was so much fun and filled with so much excitement and ALL long distance.  We started with every other week seeing each other - sometimes more than that though because of busy schedules and within months we were trying for every weekend - hey, it's hard to be apart!  I would so look forward to the weekends every week and hated skipping one.

During our dating months we really formed a common hobby in traveling and traveled not only up and down the turn pike but also to: Florida {Fort Myers, Orlando, West Palm Beach & Miami}, the Bahamas, San Francisco, Dallas, Princeton, Virginia and New York.

It was eve of the biggest Penn State football game of the season, the homecoming game vs. Michigan.  Along with my parents, brother and pup, Nash was heading up to the family State College townhouse to prepare for the weekend and the guests arriving that night including Derek, Sam (best friend), Uncle Blake & Aunt Alicia. 
While the car I was in from Media, PA was heading up the turnpike, another car was just minutes behind us -- Derek with his helper Sam were on their way to State College earlier than planned in order to surprise me.  The original plan was to be waiting at the house when I arrived; however, an interview in the Philadelphia area set Derek & Sam behind and they coordinated with Steve to get me out of the house for a bit and quickly changed the plans.
My family got me out of the house and I was confused by their weird behavior and being quickly hurried from store to store gathering items for the next day's tailgate.  During this time Derek & Sam snuck into the house and got set up (and proceeded to wait for three hours) because I just "had" to add in extra stops have all the essentials for a perfect tailgate.  Finally, I was promised to be taken out to finish shopping once the groceries could be dropped off.  At this point, Derek was set up in the basement, so I was asked to bring down the newly purchased liquor to the bar.  After a little dilly dallying (and almost running into Sam in her own hiding spot) I was truely shocked to find Derek waiting for her; he got down on one knee, proposed & I said, "Yes!." 
Derek and I went up to find everyone waiting with champagne to celebrate!  I found her last surprise, Sam (who I thought was coming the next day) and her Aunt and Uncle walked in minutes later.  Everyone went out to dinner to celebrate as well as the rest of the weekend being filled with non-stop celebrating.  Penn State also went on to defeat Michigan in four overtimes making for an even more memorable engagement weekend!

Our (at this point six year) love story hit the ultimate high point - we got married in front of a huge amount of family, friends and a handful of college friends that were n the basement that night we met and we were still close to.  That boy I had a crush on all those years finally made my dreams come true, I got to marry my first and only love.  I was so excited to become a young wife and find my way through life with my best friend.

It's already been 5+ months since we said "I do" - part of me feels like that day was so long ago and part of me feels like it was just yesterday!  We are having the best time as newlyweds. The BEST time. We're adjusting, we're figuring out things together, we're learning, and we're having so much fun.  All the big firsts - holidays, events, everything and all the little things - coming home from work and having dinner together, date nights, even running errands.  It's a blast living and doing life with my best friend.

7 comments:

  1. What a cute story AND your weeding is beautiful!!!! Chelsea@thewilliamsjourney1.blogspot.com

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  2. I love reading love stories. I am going to post mine tomorrow. :)

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  3. What a sweet story!! Love your wedding dress, too!

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  4. Aw what a cute story! Thanks so much for linking this up for the Let's Be Friends blog hop!

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  5. What a sweet story! I so want to do this with our love story!

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  6. This is so sweet! The wedding section totally made me tear up. Isn't long distance the worst; but hey! it's definitely worth it! :)

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