The Adventures of Alice and Mike: February 2012

Alice and I first met in the fall of 2000 as college freshman. It makes the math easy for keeping track of how long I've known her. Even though we'd been friends all that time, it wasn't until the summer of 2007 when we started dating. There was a rather trying year-long separation where her company relocated her to Japan in 2008/2009, although I was lucky enough to be able to go stay with her for three months during the spring. (The visit was well documented: A's blog / My blog) A mere two and a half years later, I asked her to marry me.

I'd picked out and ordered a ring from a local jeweler, but it was a loose diamond and they had to actually make the ring to put it in. I was given a rough estimate of four weeks to wait. This wasn't a completely undercover operation - I brought Alice for a jeweler visit to confirm style and size. (If a ring is being special ordered, it might as well fit correctly.) Finally one day I received the call. The ring was ready! I went to pick it up as soon as possible. My excitement morphed to mild anxiety once I had it in my possession... How was I going to go about proposing? More immediately, how was I going to make it back to my car without getting mugged?

The insurance and proposal plan came together a few days later. The ring was burning a hole in my pocket. (Not that it was ever stored in my pocket - too risky) Armed with champagne and chocolate, I drove to Alice's place while I knew she'd be out one evening to set up an ambush. Only, she wasn't out. The door swung open and there she was, in her kitchen, baking cookies. My cover was blown! She immediately guessed why I was there, and I ended up proposing about four feet inside the front door. Of all the cookies baked that night, one batch had been in the oven a bit longer than the others. Some might have considered them a little burned, but those were the best ones. It made for a good story at the office the next day when I had cookies to share.

I'm not entirely sure how to describe the wedding plans. Geek practicality? The more we talked about the wedding, the more it became clear neither of us were really looking for a big event. Once we were over that hurdle, why wait? Without the logistical crawl of a big plan to put in motion, our nimble wedding could happen whenever we wanted it. We picked sooner rather than later.

The initial date was slated to be Friday the 13th. A court wedding necessitated a weekday event, and it's not as though you're going to go back to work the following day. Friday would be perfect, complete with some superstitious irreverence. Unfortunately that date was unavailable (either the judges are themselves superstitious, or another couple beat us to the punch) so we changed our plans to Thursday the 12th. 1/12/12 is practically one of those novelty wedding dates!

Everyone met at Alice's place the afternoon of the big event. I use the term 'met' both to mean 'gathered', as well as 'were introduced' - Can you believe we'd been dating over five years and our parents had never met? Full of hors d'oeuvres (Mmm, shrimp) and embarrassed after posing for photos, we made our way to the court.

My account of events begins to become a bit less thorough and reliable at this point, as the full OMG I'M ABOUT TO GET MARRIED vibe started settling in. I remember it was a little odd walking up to the court from the parking lot, past the undercover cops standing outside the entrance smoking. A girl with an honest to goodness grill leaving the court gave us a big grin and said "Congratulations! ...I hope". One of my few regrets for the day was not getting a photo of the sheriff deputy at security holding Alice's bouquet when she walked through the metal detector.

The ceremony itself was brief, and the judge did a great job. Alice and I weren't entirely sure what to expect, and I was a bit worried it was going to be more like taking care of paperwork. Sure we hadn't sprung for a venue and special officiant, but that doesn't mean we didn't want at least a little bit of an event. I kept the receipt for the wedding as a souvenir - It's my best $10 spent to date.

And that, friends and family, is how Alice and I came to be married. Thanks for visiting!