Seven Year Wedding Anniversary

Seven years ago today, I married my best friend. Last year on this day, I made a blog post all about our wedding… today I want to tell you about how that day came to be.

There have been many times since then that I have been asked how did I meet my husband Ryan, with me being a Carolina Girl, and he being a Canuck from Vancouver. The short answer is that it was all due to HOCKEY. The full story is below...

It was a Friday night, February 18, 2000, and I was running late. I was on my way to a Pee Dee Pride Hockey game, an ECHL team that Ryan’s brother played for. I had once dated another of the guys on the team, and I still remained close to all of the other wives and girlfriends… I still even sat in the player’s family section at the games. This night, as I said, I was running late.

When I arrived at the rink, the National Anthem was already playing and the arena was dark. I made my way to my seat, but mistakenly sat one row behind my normal seat. When the lights came up, I realized my error, and also realized that I was sitting beside a guy that I had never met before. I immediately knew who he was, as he looked just like his brother! We introduced ourselves, and began chatting throughout the first period. I think I drove him crazy with my lack of hockey knowledge, plus I kept leaning over to socialize with the gals sitting in front of me, as he moved to the top of the bleachers for the final two periods of the game!

Two days later, on Sunday afternoon, we all gathered at the rink again for another game. This time, Ryan sat pretty close by throughout the entire game. I will admit that I may have started to flirt with him just a bit!

Later that evening, after a little bit of liquid courage at the neighborhood bar, Ryan began to flirt back. He even went as far at one point to use a really cheesy line on me about how he could get lost in my eyes. Yes, there had been a lot of liquid courage by this point!

The rest of the week that he was in town visiting his brother, he caught a ride with me to all of the games, both home and away. He flew back home to Vancouver the following weekend, and I figured that was it. Little did I know that this was only the beginning.

My phone rang that night, and I was a bit perplexed by the 604 area code on my caller id. I was shocked when I discovered that it was Ryan, especially since I had not given him my number! We talked for over an hour that night, and then we started talking a couple of nights a week. Before we knew it, we were talking for hours on the phone every single night.

A couple of months had gone by, and Ryan told me that he was coming back into town for the hockey playoffs. There was a game the night that he was flying in, so there was no way his brother could pick him up from the airport. I, of course, volunteered to pick him up and drive him to the game. I mentioned this to his brother a few days later when I saw him at a social function, and his brother looked at me like I was crazy… he didn’t even know that Ryan was coming back into town. Well, that was my first clue that Ryan was not coming to see his brother this visit… he was coming to see me!

After that visit, the phone calls increased drastically. We also started planning our visits with each other to become more frequent… about every 6 weeks. Looking back now, we would love to have the money that we spent back then on phone bills and plane tickets! But it was all worth it.

The long distance relationship continued for over two years, and then on April 30, 2002, Ryan proposed. He asked my parents for my hand in marriage before taking me to the park we would always go to when he was visiting. It was in that park that he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I immediately said yes, and less than 3 months later I had packed up my car and my life and moved across and then into another country to live with him. A year after that, on July 12, 2003, we were married!

There are days when I can’t believe that my fairy tale wedding occurred seven years ago. Some days it feels like it was just yesterday, and yet some days it feels like I have been with Ryan a lifetime already. I love him even more today than I did seven years ago. I adore both the husband and father that he has become.

Today, I can only look forward to the lifetime we now have ahead of us together!