Vanessa & Kenneth’s story

Wedding Date: October 24, 2009

Guess it would be best if I started our story from the beginning… I strolled into my office late the first Thursday in August 2007 after being in Chicago the previous three days and my boss called me into his office before I could even put my stuff down.  Apparently he was a little perturbed because he had just called me cell and I didn’t pick up and had something urgent to talk to me about.  He quickly sat me down and said, “If I needed you to work in Qatar for two months can you leave tonight?!”  Realizing what a great opportunity this was I quickly responded by telling him I could leave first thing in the morning - who would have known this business trip would change my life the way it did.

So I arrived at my hotel a little before midnight Saturday night and was told to meet downstairs the following morning to meet the rest of my team before heading to the client (apparently, they work Sundays in the Middle East).  I’ll never forget where I was, I was standing in the middle of the lobby with one of my team members who was telling me about who would be on the project with us while we were waiting for them.  He pointed out Vanessa, who was coming from behind me, and when I turned around I thought she looked amazing in her black slacks and white top, but our first meeting together was far from perfect.  She quickly came up to us, said hi to me, blew me off and went back to her room to grab her computer.  While I was wondering how on Earth I can work with someone that discourteous for two months my coworker told me she just got in the day before me and they had lost her luggage and has been wearing the same outfit for three days.  Understanding how frustrating that could be, I didn’t hold the first impression against her, even though I still give her a hard time about it to this day.

But things warmed up between us pretty quickly after that; we were sitting in the hall waiting to start our interviews and I heard one of the Qatari whistling Clementine from his office.  I looked around at the rest of my teammates to see if they heard the same thing; nothing on their faces.  But then I made eye contact with Vanessa, I knew she heard it too and we had a good laugh, with the rest of our team completely oblivious to what we were laughing at.

For the next two months we learned more and more about each other, like that even though she was out of the Boston office she was originally from Texas, while I was originally from Boston and out of our Dallas office.  We had the same interests, hobbies, tastes, almost everything and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company while we were overseas, but I didn’t discuss pursuing anything because I knew that once the project was over we would go back to being half a country away.  But one of my partners from Dallas was trying to convince her to transfer to Dallas when she got back; she entertained the idea for a while, but I didn’t think she would go through with it, but part of me hoped she would.  So after two months I left to work back in the states and she stayed to work on another project; I thought that was the end of it.

So in January I received an email that she would be transferring to Dallas and will be here in February.  Surely and slowly we starting hanging out more and more - trying restaurants for dinner, going to comedy shows, trying new bars, signing up for dance lessons, and even picking up a pair of kittens, one of which I named.  I assumed our office thought we were dating, my boss even assumed so by the time March came around, but we were just great friends.  But my feelings for her started to grow - I knew deep down that she really was something special and I really wanted more from this, but knew if I was wrong about her feelings about me I knew I would be throwing away not only one of the best friendships I’ve had in years, but a great colleague as well.  So after a month of weighing the pros and cons I decided I should say something.  So on the day of our firm’s promotion day party I picked her up on my way to work (we decided to go out to dinner as well afterwards so we just decided to take one car).  As usual there was a little flirtation in the office and a few of us decided to go to lunch before the party.  We sat across from each other with about 10 of our colleagues and congratulated those that were promoted, during which she would often casually reach across the table and grab some of my fries without any hesitation, which did raise a few eyebrows from some of our coworkers.  We went to the party, but we just grabbed a table off to the side by ourselves and talked for a few ours, met a couple of colleagues for drinks later and went to dinner.  After dinner I dropped her off at her place and just told her we should go on a date when I get back in a few days, which was answered with an “okay” and a beautiful smile.

We went on our first official date the following Monday, poor girl was nervous because it was an actual date, but both of us dove right into it without any regrets.  We already knew so much about each other before we even started so we became emotionally close in a considerably short amount of time, and I knew within a couple of weeks that this was really it.  And in the middle of September, a mere 6 weeks into it, we talked about what we want out of life, and how great the relationship is, and how it is the most fulfilling one either one of us has ever experienced.  And, somehow, we casually mentioned that neither one of us would be leaving, which left us unofficially engaged for a moment because there was no ring, but we started planning the wedding immediately.  So after two months of looking at locations, signing vendor contracts, and meeting the families, her ring came in from Europe and I gave it to her immediately to make it official - god knows I couldn’t wait another minute to call her my fiancé!

So that’s our story.  A guy from New England living in Texas had to go halfway across the world to find what he was looking for, a girl that exceeded every expectation he could have ever imagined, who was ironically from Texas living in New England.