So the lovely Alyssa reminded me on my last wedding post that I still haven’t shared the story of how E and I met yet–the most important part of our wedding journey! Honestly, I could write pages and pages about how E and I started dating and how our relationship grew… but I’ll keep it short for today.
E and I met in September 2013 during our first trimester at Carleton. We both went into college thinking that we wanted to major in physics (ha!) and were lab partners in our first physics class.
Via class and some mutual friends, we became friends. We discovered that we both loved to host parties, cook, and spend time outside. But, we were just friends, until the next term…
In January 2014, Carleton’s only semi-formal dance of the year, Midwinter Ball, was coming up. My friend L and I decided that we needed to have dates to the dance. No matter that pretty much everyone else just went with their friends. We decided to convince our best guy friends to ask one another to the dance.
So L set to work convincing E to ask me. We still have screenshots of their Facebook conversation and it’s pretty funny 😛 Luckily, she succeeded–and E, being the gentleman he is, didn’t just ask me. He set up a scavenger hunt around campus with flowers and poems, ending with him stepping out of hiding with a red rose in hand! Of course, I said yes.
We had a wonderful time at the ball, and the week afterwards on Valentine’s Day we went on our first “real” date. (It was to see “The Hobbit”–if you know me and my Lord of the Rings obsession, you’re probably not surprised!) And then another date, and another. Pretty soon, we were spending every spare minute together between classes and on the weekends. We were head over heels for each other (and still are :D)! Our relationship progressed quickly, but it felt so natural. Really, I was just worried about what other people thought–I had no doubts about us at all.
A couple of months into dating, we finally had “the talk.” “Are we dating?” “Yes, I think so. Do you think so?” “Yes, definitely.” *Awkward silence* We told our families and friends, and E visited home with me for the first time in May for my dad’s birthday. My family loved him, which only made me more sure of our relationship. Then E snagged a summer internship in the Twin Cities, which meant that we got to spend it together.
It sounds all like butterflies and rainbows, but we also went through some really hard things in our first year. We lost friends in a car accident. I struggled with an eating disorder and other undiagnosed health problems. E’s dad was diagnosed with cancer. And, naturally, we got the side eye from relatives and friends who thought that we became too close, too soon. For example, when E got the internship that first summer to be close to me. Or when I spent our first Christmas together with his family in Colorado. But those things only served to bring us closer together from the beginning. We learned how to be there for each other through thick and thin, in sickness and in health.
In our first premarital counseling session last week, our counselor asked me if there was a specific moment when I knew that E was the one. And while I can pinpoint moments that confirmed it for me, I don’t know if there was a deciding moment.
My parents divorced when I was 13, and as a result I never wanted to be in a relationship that I couldn’t see having a future. Though I went on a few dates in high school and college, E was my first and only boyfriend. But at the same time, I never wanted to build up unrealistic expectations for him, and for us, in my head, so I didn’t think about marriage immediately. Our relationship just felt right from the beginning. And as the years passed and we talked more about the future, it became clear that it was going to be our future.
And that’s the story of how we met! I never thought that I would meet “the one” and get married so young. But then, I didn’t know that E existed. I couldn’t be more excited for July 28th, 2018–the day I get to say I do to my best friend, biggest cheerleader, the guy that my sister has called “her older brother” for years, and the love of my life. <3
If you’re in a relationship or married, how did you meet your SO? And if not, how do you hope to? Online? While in Paris? Over spilled coffee at your favorite cafe?
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