(Since I’m in BC… on our anniversary… and he is in Ontario – I don’t have any wedding photos to share with you but I had with me the last trip we did as a family, to Washington DC a couple of weeks ago. It will have to do.)

It’s hard to believe that a decade ago I married my sweetheart. I was 24 and he was 29.

We met on a Sunday in the summer of 1995. Through my cousin, who plays the drums in our church, we got to know one another. I was in town for a business meeting and after I attended church with them (Dave was the pastor) – all four of us went for lunch and Vietnamese food. He went his way and I flew back home, over 5,000 klm away – thinking he was nice but nothing more after all I lived 4 Provinces away. He sent me a birthday card a month later and then through the persuasion of my uncle and cousins, we started talking on the phone. Soon we were talking almost every night for hours on end (before telephone savings plans).

The next time I saw him was the first week of December. I went to pick him up at the airport on a Wednesday night. I couldn’t remember what he looked like but my heart was pounding… So hard that I thought you could have seen it through my coat. I introduced him to the family and on Sunday I introduced him to my pastor whose first words were, “So… when are you two getting married?” I was floored, Dave was floored. My dad was standing right behind us – we had just met after all… A couple of days later I knew… Dave knew…. my parents knew – it was going to happen. We were going to be married. As he was leaving to fly home on Saturday (day 11 of seeing him in person) I handed him a note and told him not to open it until he was up in the air and the Pilot had turned off the seat belt sign. In the letter I told him I loved him. A few days later I phoned him and told him that I picked up my wedding dress.

He asked me to marry him a month later (January 1996 after phoning my dad for permission) when I flew out to meet his family and friends for the first time. He was going to fly out to surprise me on Valentine’s Day and ask me then but he couldn’t wait. We were married on May 11th, 1996 (my grandparent’s 56th wedding anniversary). When I walked down the aisle it was the 40th day we had been in each other’s physical presence in the 9 months since the first day we met.

It didn’t hit me that my life was all going to change until the day before the wedding when I was trying to get ready for the “big day” and trying to pack up my entire life all at the same time. It hit me again at the reception. That I was flying off to Hawaii for our honeymoon and never coming back to BC. Living in a new Province – with a new man – with a new family – with a new church – with a new job – and the “new” list goes on. It was a hard adjustment to make but worth it.

Thanks for the memories! I love you lots.