Weddingbee bios

No we didn't meet in a bar :) but it's true, Fat Black Pussycat played an integral part in the "how we got together" story!

Backstory: After graduating from college, in 2004, my girlfriends and I dispersed to our various cities. I went home to Boston to begin my temp job (nerd alert!) collecting mosquitoes for the summer, and one of my best girls went home to NYC to work in a publishing house where she'd interned every winter break and summer since freshman year. She loved being back home in NYC after braving Western Mass for four years, and absolutely loved her job and coworkers, one coworker in particular, it seemed. I had been talking about her coworker J a LOT, to the point where I was basically wondering why she hadn’t asked him out. She explained “oh no, I’m not interested, I am just saying he’s the only guy at the office good enough to date on of my girls.” Uh, ok. I didn’t think much of it, but when M planned a post-grad party and insisted that I meet her at her office the Friday night before the party, I was a bit suspicious. “You can meet J....oh, and maybe some other coworkers” she said, all enthused. Hmm. Very suspicious indeed.

So J and I were finally introduced. It was a typical, slightly awkward but perfectly cordial, introduction. After exchanging pleasantries, J said, “You look like Amanda Beard, the swimmer” grinned, and raised his eyebrows. Years later, we would discuss exactly what that meant (he thought I was cute!!), but at the time, I just thought he was nice, but kind of random and weird.

After that weekend, I returned to Boston. I finished out the last week of my job, and entered what I called "the dark period of unemployment." The bad things: I felt like a failure for not getting a full-time hire in another department, I was bored and stressed and seemingly unable to find another job. The good thing about being unemployed was the fact that I had endless time on my hands! When J made contact again in December (by sending me a bootleg CD via M. Aww that’s love), I was able to dedicate some serious time to “get to know you better” emails. Finally, something to do after many months of endless, unsuccessful job-seeking!

The emails, like our first introduction, started awkwardly, but as awkward as they were, those emailed basically opened the door to our entire relationship. Our love blossomed over bootleg CD’s and email, ha ha ha. So special.

I won’t take you through the rest of the exhausting details of our nearly five (5!!!) year relationship, but after three months of incredibly long emails discussing the New England Patriots (their triumphs, weaknesses, faults, and whether or not Peyton Manning is their greatest nemesis), fighting about the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets, talking about wildlife conservation, Jam’s trips to Mexico and Vegas, my time studying abroad in Africa, hopes and dreams, etc, we found ourselves preparing to meet for the second time for M’s birthday. We got together at her house for a movie Friday night. Again, awkward encounter. Jam and I sat chastely on her couch watching “Napolean Dynamite,” which he found frustratingly stupid. He ended the night with a casual “see you tomorrow” and that seemed like the end of that. Saturday night, however, brought us to a magical place called the Fat Black Pussycat, a bar in the village. Let me just say, for us, that place sealed the deal. Third in-person meeting, first kiss, DONE DEAL. Three weeks later, though I somehow lost the email, he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Thus ensued years of long-distance dating (we’re still long-distance, hopefully not for much longer)! It’s had its ups and downs, but mostly, we’ve had ups. We’ve traveled and done a lot of fun things together, and we’ve tried to capitalize on the time we’ve spent in each other’s company. We gave each other moral support as we both made our way through grad school, we’ve helped each other grow as people and have developed a wonderfully solid partnership. While Fat Black Pussycat sounds like a dubious place to begin a relationship, I don't know what we would've done without it!!

 

I wrote this shortly after we got engaged, but edited the story for this the 'bee, because it is loooo-oooong. It's kind of funny though, so bear with me. Also important to note - I had made reservations at my favorite restuarant for my birthday in April, thinking that's when J would pop the question. Surprise, surprise, I was duped!

Here goes:

Thursday was an insane day.

It started with me oversleeping....by two whole hours. This left me with an hour and a half to shower, get dressed, pack up my stuff, and get to Tufts, a drive that took me two hours in the morning rush hour traffic last time I was dumb enough to drive there. I was panicked, but I had to look good that day because J and I were going out to dinner at Taranta for restaurant week. EEK!

I made it through class, a conference call (during which I had a bloody nose and couldn't get up to get tissue - thank you random girl who gave me a fistful of napkins), horrendous rush-hour traffic, and got to Babson on time to pick up J. We started to head to Boston. More traffic! I actually hit the fender of a truck with my mirror. What a stressful day. J just kept patting my knee saying "calm down dear. It's gonna be ok."

When we pulled up the restaurant, there was no valet parking! The valets had disappeared! Argh. Finally I got so pissed I parked in the Government Center garage. There was much flipping out on my part. As usual, J was his calm self. When we couldn't get out using the elevator, I kind of FREAKED OUT and stomped out of the garage in my four inch heels and started making my way to the restaurant. Jam sort of followed in this "my girlfriend is crazy but there's not much I can do about it" way, and eventually I calmed down, linked my arm with his, and told him I'd be fine once I had a drink.

We found the restaurant right at 7:30. Perfect timing. The maitre'd was super nice and was like "oh your table is waiting" He asked if he could take our coats and I was sorta like "ummmmm" but J said "No, I'm good" so I decided to keep mine too, noticing that there was quite a draft from the door. We got seated at a cozy little table on the right wall of the restaurant, it was perfect. We ordered martinis and relaxed (finally). I think we probably kind of nauseated the people next to us because Jam was like 'oh you look so pretty' and I said 'well you look so handsome' 'I love you' 'I love you!' Whatev, they got over it. We chatted throughout appetizers and dinner  and after we finished dinner J said "Close your eyes, I have a present for you." Hmm. Ok. I complied, though I was dying to peek! 'Maybe he got me an anniversary present!' I thought. When I was told to open my eyes J had a piece of paper in his hand. Hmm again. "I wrote you a poem" he said "describing our relationship" "Wow!" I said "Read it!" It was a wonderful poem, talking about the day we met, the evolution of our relationship, how we fell in love. Really lovely and heartfelt. Of course the waiter came in the middle, and J just leaned in and spoke louder. 'Wow' I thought 'he is intense about this poem!' The poem went on to talk about us in the present tense. J read "So could this be the moment," and whips his napkin off his lap.

In my head I went "whaaa????"

He gets down on one knee and says

"that I ask you to spend the rest of your life with me?"

And opens a box with THIS in it:

I said "OH MY GOD JAM!!"

He said "Will you marry me?"

I said "OF COURSE"

Then proceeded to weep. I think we kissed, but it's fuzzy, it was all such a shock!! I think I said "Oh my God" several times, you know starting the engagement off on the right foot by using the Lord's name in vain as much as possible, LOL. Wow. I was so surprised and happy and weepy. The waiter came over with dessert and was kinda like "what's up?" and Jam said "I just proposed to the lady and she said 'yes!'" The waiter was like "OH congratulations!!" and took our picture a couple times and had limoncello sent over. I just remember putting my head on the table and holding Jam's hand and basically repeating "Oh my God, Jam, I can't believe you!" hahahahahhahah so eloquent. Finally when I got my wits about me, I said "do my mom and dad know??!" He said "I spoke to your father in January, didn't you know that" I'm pretty dense I guess, cause I had no idea! I thought the weird moods they were both in that afternoon after I caught them having a man to man over beer in the basement were reflective of the NFL playoff games we were watching!!! Jeez!! We began making all the important phone calls, calling parents and people we weren't sure we'd be seeing soon in person, but mostly savored the moment. Of course we got a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate and killed that, and then lingered at the restaurant til I felt sufficiently sober to drive. While we were sitting and talking about lots and lots of stuff (the beautiful life we're going to have together, the tan babies, Jam moving, new jobs, finding a place to live, the wedding, etc) a waiter came over to see the ring. He said to Jam "Damn. You have good taste." ha ha of course, he picked me!!

Needless to say, we didn't really sleep that night, then spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday traveling around visiting people to tell them the news. My grandparents were very happy when we stopped by Saturday night, and my friend Jenny and her family and my aunt, uncle and cousin were really excited when I broke the news (it was a secret!) Everyone thought the ring was fantastic, then wanted to know when we were going to get married, then asked where we were going to live. Funny.

For a year that start off a bit rough, this has been the true silver lining, and I just can't wait for the future and all it has in store for us - a life together! Hooray!!!!

for photo credits go here.

I had so many DIY project ideas, I tried to get them all into an inspiration board. This way, I could look at everything at once and try and figure out if it was too much DIY, too much work, not enough savings, etc. Details and photo cred here.