Wedding Wednesday: Our Love Story

We are in the midst of planning some wedding things, but don't have too much exciting new news to share so thought I'd take a break from the "planning posts" and share the story of how we met (with Valentine's day on Friday I thought it appropriate!).

First I should note that in 2006, I received a letter in the mail and I was assigned my roommate at CU Boulder [Chelsea]. To say I was nervous and scared to live with this total stranger, as I embarked on this entirely new adventure far from home, would be an understatement. But, much to my surprise I was blessed with one of the sweetest, fun, and all around awesome roommates who is now one of my best friends.

Flash forward four years (after Chelsea had moved away to South Carolina at the end of freshman year we still kept in close touch) and Chelsea was getting married! She had mentioned that I was walking down the aisle with this guy, Alex, and he was "cute". I said yea, yea, whatever Chels! A few days later Alex friended me on Facebook (a bit weird I thought, but I accepted, since that would be an entirely too awkward walk down the aisle if i didn't, ha). A few weeks later I arrived in SC, and that night I met Alex. I remember thinking, okay she's right, this guy is really cute...and began to get giddy about "walking down the aisle" and being around him over the weekend.

We hung out that weekend, but of course only for a bit since I wasn't in town too long. We had exchanged numbers and began texting the day I left. But I thought this guy lives in North Carolina, and I live in California--he's great, but this could never work. But, daily texts (I still remember the butterflies of anticipating texts) lead to a call one day, then long phone calls, and finally one day Alex asked if he could fly me out there for the 4th of July. My family thought I was a bit crazy for agreeing to go visit this guy, but I assured them I was staying at Chelsea's house and I would be safe. She is one of my closest friends and I knew she would never let me do this if she didn't think he was a good guy. On that first flight from CA to SC I was SO nervous. As I walked off the plane I was thinking what was I doing? Going to stay with this guy who I had only spent a few hours with? But then when I saw Alex standing behind the gate I became excited, still nervous, but excited. We drove to Chelsea's house and had the best weekend EVER!

One of our first pictures together 

After that weekend, we began to officially "date" long distance. This led to trips across country every few months and daily Skype sessions (this was before FaceTime became the thing...). We had tons of fun visiting each other and going on fun weekend trips. [Side note: that special time in our relationship made me grow to LOVE weekend getaways with Alex. They are probably my favorite thing to do together.] Of course the goodbyes became harder and harder. After just over a year we realized if this was going anywhere we needed to make a decision. At the time I thought I was going to move to North Carolina, but after many long talks we decided Alex would move out to California. So, after nearly a year and a half of dating long distance, my Southern Gentleman packed up his entire life and moved out to CA...and the rest is history ;)

Alex's first trip West (we went to Catalina...one of my favorite memories!)