We met in college when we were 19 or 20. He was friends with a friend of mine and I had heard a lot about him before actually even meeting him. I actually met him my sophomore year of college when we lived in the same dorm. I put two and two together that he was the guy my friend had talked about. For those who know Dan, or at least knew him in college, he was Mr. Friendly. Part of the reason (ok probably the majority of the reason) he took the "extra long" path to finish his Bachelor's is because he would rather spend all night up talking and hanging out with people, rather than doing homework or getting sleep to get up for class the next day. So we spent a lot of time together that first semester and took random trips to Iowa in the middle of the night, just because the border was 30 minutes away. He left school the 2nd semester due to grades and I spent a few months trying to see if things could work out with an old boyfriend. We didn't have much contact that semester, it was very clear things were over between me and the old boyfriend (and in fact I think he met his now wife a few months after that and they are happily married with beautiful children), and I was going about my merry way in school. Dan came back that following year and we resumed our friendship right where it left off. We continued being just friends for the next 2 years, although I had reached a point where I definitely liked him and wanted a relationship with him. He was a little slower on the uptake.
Fast forward to June 2003 when it all finally clicked for him. I had been on a cross country road trip with my best friend and when we arrived back home, he was waiting for me with flowers and asking me out on a date. We dated a year and everything was great. Then, we went to a friend's wedding and cue the man freakout. We broke up for a little bit after that because he wasn't sure if he could do the marriage thing. It freaked him out. We were 23-24ish and he had not finished his undergrad degree at this point and was unsure of where his life was headed. Eventually he got things figured out, we got back together, he went back to school, finished his undergrad and went on with Master's degree. All this time though, I kept wondering about marriage. I didn't want to push him when he wasn't ready but I also didn't want to keep being with someone who had no intentions of getting married.
To make an even longer story short, he matured and felt ready to take the marriage step. It was a critical time in our relationship because he had accepted a PhD position in The Netherlands. He knew I wasn't going to move with him just being a girlfriend. It was definitely a make or break decision. Little did I know, behind the scenes he was preparing to ask me to marry him.
On Easter morning April 4, 2010, he asked me to be his wife. You can read the proposal story here . It was everything I had dreamed of and more. A month and a half later, he left for The Netherlands to start his position (anddd to avoid all the wedding planning:) ). We wanted to get married as soon as possible, due to him living abroad and us having dated for 8 years at that point. So we set a date for August...4 months after we got engaged, much to the dismay of my mom who definitely thought we needed more time to plan (but we did it mom!). Dan flew back for the wedding (obviously) and it was one of the best days of my life. I was nervous he would be nervous since he had had so many issues with getting married (prior to getting engaged) but he was so confident in his decision and only looking forward to spending the rest of his life with me. I honestly couldn't believe how calm and cool he was. I'm pretty sure I was more nervous than he was!!
We had such a blast at our wedding and wouldn't mind doing something like that every year:) It was a huge party with all of our closest family and friends. Lots of crazy dancing, late night ghost hunts(for our guests, not us:) ), and people still telling us today how much fun our wedding was. We also had some wedding crashers that came and danced with all of us for awhile. The Ladies of Harley were at the resort for a weekend getaway and saw all the fun going on and asked my mom about it in the elevator. My mom invited them in to come dance and hang out and the rest was history. We didn't want to leave the party at the end of the night...but kind of we did :)
The next day we had breakfast with our parents, which we normally wouldn't have done if we weren't moving abroad in a week and then we headed out for our honeymoon in the Smokey Mountains. It was a beautiful week in a huge cabin(we got upgraded because there was something wrong with our original cabin) that overlooked the Smokey Mountains. We headed back home after a week to finish our packing and say goodbye to our friends and family to start our new adventure as husband and wife in Europe. Stay tuned for Part 2 to read about our adjustment to life here and life since then...in the meantime, enjoy these pics from our wedding!
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