Friday, February 7, 2014

Kristi + Bill

This week's story features a fun, quirky couple. I discovered their story through a contest I was running at Wedding 101. Couples were to submit their love story to win a chance to be our models for a style shoot. I had several submissions, but Kristi and Bill's story won my heart. It's funny how place, time, and the courage to start a conversation can lead to finding love. Enjoy!
(Allan Williams Photography: Samary Plantation Style Shoot, Fall 2013) 

Serendipity

Perhaps we chose a weird day to get married - March 15,2014.

“I know what March 15th is!” Bill declared (he just knew it was famous for something) about 30 minutes after we had booked the church. “It’s the Ides of March!”

The Ides of March is a pagan feast day devoted to Anna Perenna, the goddess of the year, but arguably better known as the day Julius Caesar was murdered in Shakespeare’s famous play of the same name. So, maybe it is a weird day to get married, but its connection to a book also seems kind of fitting considering a book is actually how we met.

We met on a bus. Yes, like in the commercials, except in real life. Bill was busy reading his book, and I was concerned about getting the last available seat that was not next to a weirdo. When I asked him what he was reading, he sheepishly revealed that it was a fantasy novel. He immediately began to ignore me assuming that with his vast nerdom already revealed I would be disinterested. Fortunately for Bill, he did not look like your typical nerd—more Abercrombie and less World of Warcraft—and I was feeling chatty that day.

When Bill gave in and put down his book, we really hit it off. And when my stop came up before his, he gave me his business card. (He will admit now that he hoped the gold embossing would impress me.) We became Facebook friends, but we never talked again for two years, owing mostly to a former long-term relationship of mine. However, I kept that card for some reason—and now, we all know the reason.

When my high school sweet heart ended our nine-year relationship, it was like a plot to a bad rom-com or a Shakespearean tragedy. We broke up on a Tuesday, and I had to fly to my hometown thatThursday…to stand in my best friend’s wedding… in a bridesmaid dress that was “my color”…at the church I had planned to get married at…followed by a reception at the venue I’d always dreamed of. In a frenzy of updating my Facebook with pictures of me living my wonderfully fabulous, single, independent life (and deleting all those pictures of my ex) I posted a picture of me in that amethyst satin bridesmaid dress. And that dress just happened to catch Bill’s attention. He sent me a Facebook message that read, “I hope I’m not breaking any rules, but you look really gorgeous in that dress.” And who said bridesmaid dresses were useless after their one wear?

For our first date, Bill took me to meadery, which is like a winery, but for mead, a honey wine. Coincidentally, mead is also the drink of the gods in Norse mythology. So, it feels as storied as Shakespeare or cheesy television commercials or romantic comedy plots, and Bill and I just got giddy off the enchanted history we learned from the mead makers and the taste of a really good first date.

But having just gotten out of a long-term relationship, I was hesitant to dive back into anything too serious. So, I dated Bill, and Bryan, and David, and Keith, and Mike, and some other online dating disasters for a while. But I always kept coming back to Bill, a Cleveland, Ohio native—this man who had always proclaimed he hated three things in life: Southerners, lawyers, and people with dogs. (Bill now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with an attorney and our Yorkshire terrier, Scrappy. And I maintain that God has a great sense of humor.)

We fell in love in the Fall of 2010 and have been together ever since. He made me listen to a lot of metal music, and I made him listen to a lot of country. We fell in love with Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel.” And over Memorial Day weekend of 2013, after renting a delightful bed and breakfast in Gatlinburg for the weekend, Bill drove us two hours out of the way to Johnson City, TN, where he proposed, so that we could always share a glance and a smile when the honky tonk bands on Lower Broad inevitably play “our” song. Rock me, mama.


Now, you see exactly why I picked them! They certainly won some bonus points by having "Wagon Wheel" as their song! I'll be thinking of them on the Ides of March as they exchange their vows! :) 

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