The Journey (as told by the bride) Maybe we’re not allowed to make this assessment, but Tim and I love our story. It’s somewhat unique, and it has good parts and bad parts, but it’s a story of growth for both of us, individually, as friends, and as a couple. And we really like how it ends. We met at Houghton College. Tim was a year ahead of me, and we had some mutual friends. Tim’s a quiet guy, as many of you know, and so although we spent many meals at the same table in the dining hall, we really didn’t talk for the first several months that we were acquainted. Anyway, I was just a little obsessed with his roommate at the time, so I wasn’t paying much attention to anyone else. But during the second semester of my freshman year, Tim and I started talking. Tim loves to listen, and anyone who knows me (or my mother) knows that it’s just my nature to tell long stories. We quickly became close friends during that semester, and the next fall, we picked up where we’d left off. Now in my sophomore year, I started planning my future, and soon developed a rigid eight-year plan for my life, which included two bachelor’s and a master’s, serving in the Peace Corps, and a small window of time in which I would have to find and marry a suitable husband, in order to stay on schedule. Meanwhile, I had joined the cheerleading team (a move that shocked a few family and friends), and my dear friend Tim made a point to come to every game to show his support. One night, my dear roommate, Justina, suggested that I would end up marrying Tim, and when I denied it, we made a ten dollar bet. I was sure I wasn’t going to lose. But, inevitably, we did begin to wonder whether being best friends was enough, or whether we should try dating. In February we decided to give it a shot. I think we first broke up about three days later. I was just a little afraid of commitment, and until that point my longest relationship had lasted four months, when I was 12. A serious relationship, even with someone who I trusted completely, was pretty scary. We dated for about nine months, breaking up every so often. We even talked about getting married (which was a pretty serious threat to my fear of commitment), but decided finally that there were lots of things that we each needed to do separately (including completion of my eight-year plan), before getting married. Our paths were just going in different directions. Of course the break up was difficult, but we were determined to remain close friends. Incredibly, we did maintain our friendship. Over the next couple years, we celebrated many personal accomplishments, as we each graduated from college, took first jobs, moved to new areas (we haven’t lived within 45 minutes of one another since we were students at Houghton, and for the past year have had six hours between us!). My eight-year plan grew considerably more flexible, and I learned a lot about defining success. By last summer, Tim had graduated and landed a sweet job in southern Maryland, and it occurred to me that our paths weren’t really going in different directions anymore. Our friendship had survived dating and breaking up once before, and I was willing to take the risk to see if it would work this time around. It was just a matter of convincing Tim. Last September, Tim and I met up in Philadelphia. I was in Binghamton, and he was in Southern Maryland, and the six hour drive had meant that we hadn’t seen each other in months. I’d analyzed the situation for over a month, with help from my best friend (and Maid of Honor!) Tami, and sitting on a bench at Independence Hall, I got up the guts to say, “So… I think we should date.” This was pretty much out of left field for Tim, and he laughed at me and asked if I was serious. But after explaining that I really had put some thought into this, I was able to get him to agree. Building a relationship on the base of a six-year friendship means you get to skip a lot of the getting-to-know-you formalities, and within a month we were talking about marriage. I insisted that he not propose before November, so that people wouldn’t think we were crazy. He’s going to tell the proposal story himself, so I won’t take away from that, but I will say that it was so so so perfect. I can’t put into words how blessed I feel to be marrying my best friend. People have told us that a guy and girl can’t be “just” friends, but we really did pull it off for a long time. People have told us that it’s impossible to go back to friendship after dating, but we managed that ok. And it hasn’t been easy, but I think the challenges that we’ve overcome along the way have given us a solid preparation for other challenges we’ll face in our marriage. No matter what challenges there are, I can’t imagine any better way to face them than with Tim. <-- Previous Story Next Story --> Return Home