Our Story: How We Met

I remember it like it was yesterday. I entered work at priceline.com and noticed something or should I say someone different. Sitting next to the usual receptionist was a beautiful young lady. My eyes locked like I was a deer caught in headlights. Luckily, she didn't notice me staring at her until the last second so I was able to save some face and look away before it became weird.

I don't really remember the first time I saw Josh. It was my second week at priceline.com and I was still trying to get a handle on everything. It wasn't until he introduced himself to me that I really noticed him. And notice him I DID!! I remember thinking that he could be an American Eagle model. I quickly emailed my friend Megan to tell her all about him.

A few weeks after I had introduced myself to Colleen, I finally mustered up enough courage to ask her out to lunch. It took a little while for my mustering to kick in - I was very nervous and remember walking past her desk and hiding out in the bathroom for a few minutes before I actually asked her out to lunch.

Well he didn't really "ask" me out to lunch. Instead he awkwardly approached my desk startling me as he mumbled out the words ... "You got plans?".

I am pretty sure I said "Do you have plans for lunch?", but who really knows.

Anyway - as I was saying. I didn't understand what he was talking about so I simply said "What?"

I think I speak for all men when I say that if a hot girl says "What?" after you ask her out it is quite debilitating and it took my last little bit of courage to repeat my request.

I realized that he was asking me out to lunch, but I couldn't go because I had to meet with my boss during that time. He responded okay and as he was leaving I said "Maybe some other time."

What a huge sucker punch to my stomach!! I had been building this up for weeks and now I had been tossed to the side with a weak excuse. I really thought that Colleen was not interested in me and therefore made up a quick reason to say no. Because I was under this impression I purposely avoided her for the next two weeks. Some may say that is a little immature and those people are correct.

I noticed that I hadn't seen Josh in a while and figured he wasn't going to ask me out any more so I decided to take matters into my own hands. He may say that I stalked him because I mysteriously found his desk, but I just say I was being resourceful. I showed up at his desk startling him a little.

What Colleen didn't know was that only 10 minutes earlier I went upstairs to mail something and spoke louder than normal ensuring that Colleen would hear my voice from her desk and come running. And it worked like a charm!!!!

Of course you did sweetie. So I asked him if he would like to get lunch together sometime this week. Evidently when you just narrow it to one day mis-communication can occur! Josh, being the charming person he is, turned to me and said ...

"Let me check my schedule." - I really regret saying those words because I proceeded to open my calendar with Colleen watching over my shoulder only to reveal that my calendar was completely blank for the entire week! Yeah - I felt like an idiot, but not wanting to admit that I simply said. "Friday looks pretty open."

I really wanted to laugh, but instead I just cracked a smile. I agreed that Friday was indeed "open" and we set our lunch date for 12 noon. Apparently, Josh thought I would forget or come up with another excuse so he decided ...

To send her an outlook meeting request. Wow - you think I would have learned from the blank calendar experience only minutes before, but I didn't. What is worse than sending the meeting request is that it took Colleen almost an hour to accept it!! I was sweating bullets. For any single guys out there reading this -- please learn from my foibles.

Friday came and my Outlook meeting reminder popped up informing me that my lunch with Josh was in 5 minutes. He suggested that we go to Cosi in Darien. I had never been to a Cosi before so I was excited and a little nervous. I took twenty minutes picking out my outfit that morning and even switched my purse.

We arrived at Cosi and Colleen ordered first. It was at this point that the awkward table, which had been so heavily on me, turned.

I opened my purse and realized that my wallet was still in my other purse. My face turned so red!! I sheepishly turned around and informed Josh that I didn't have my wallet.

First she gives me an excuse about meeting with her boss and then she "conveniently" doesn't have her wallet. I thought to myself "This girl is playing me!!!" I later found out that both of these "excuses" were 100 percent true.

As crazy as it sounded, he kindly paid for my food and didn't mention it at all. I was still very embarrassed.

Despite the wallet speed bump, our lunch date was awesome! I remember that we had a great conversation and the hour flew by in no time.

Lunch was really great! So great that later that day I emailed Josh asking him what are good places to go to in South Norwalk. He emailed me back a list of his favorite restaurants. I then replied and said that my roommate (Megan) and I were going to be in SONO that night if he wanted to meet up with us. I also gave him my phone number.

That's right. I didn't have to ask Colleen for her phone number, I guess it was God's way of saving me from another embarrassing situation. I wasn't able to meet up with Colleen that night, but a couple of weeks later we went out on our first date.

More about our first date next week! Stay Tuned!!!

RSVP, Registry and Hotel Accommodations

RSVP:
Just a reminder - please rsvp by March 1st. To rsvp please email us at the email address that is on your invitation rsvp card.

In your email response please include who is or is not attending.


REGISTRY:
We are registered at Williams-Sonoma, Macy's and Target. You can access each of these registries from the links above or the links on the right.


HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS:
If you need overnight accommodations, we blocked off a group of rooms at the
Courtyard Marriott in Norwalk, CT at a special discounted rate.

In order to get a room at the special rate you need to book your reservation before April 22, 2009.

You can book your room by clicking on either the link above or the link on the right.

We ate Cake and Fought with a Printer!

I have to say the best part about planning a wedding is by far cake testing. If you missed this delectable experience during your own wedding planning, tell us and you can come with us next time. We were on a sugar rush for about 3 hours.

All that sugar energy came in handy this evening when we quickly realized the absolute worst part about planning a wedding. Printing invitations!!!

It is now 10:36 PM on a Friday night and Colleen and I have been printing invitations since 6:25 PM. Yup, four fun filled hours! So when you get one of our lovely invitations just remember, there was a lot of blood (figurative), sweat (literal), and tears (almost literal) that went with that love.



We also would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to the bizhub C500 printer. We didn't mean most of the things we screamed at you this evening.

We Set a Date!

Over the last few weeks we have called and looked at many places for our ceremony and reception and last Monday we finally chose one.

Waveny House in New Canaan, CT!

We were fortunate enough to book their last Saturday in Spring.

MAY NINTH!!!

Waveny has a very large beautiful terrace in the back. We hope to use it during our special day so please join us and pray for warm, dry weather on May 9, 2009!

And here is a random fact for any of you Back to the Future Fans. Waveny House is where Christopher Lloyd (Dr. Brown) lived for some of his childhood. His mother sold it to the Town of New Canaan in 1967.

Wedding Dresses

No - this is not a post about Colleen's wedding dress. I've read articles on theknot.com and evidently I am not supposed to see or even know anything about her dress until the wedding ceremony. This post is however about wedding dresses - just not any that Colleen will be wearing during the wedding.

When we went down to Florida to visit Colleen's family her mom could not resist the urge to have Colleen get in touch with her roots - literally.

Mary Ann (Colleen's Mom) brought out her wedding dress and her mother's (Colleen's Grandma) wedding dress and encouraged Colleen to put on a well documented impromptu fashion show.

The best part is that this fashion was not closed to just immediate family, Colleen's Aunt Nancy's family and Tara's (Colleen's Sister) boyfriend were also in attendance. And now with the help of technology all of you can see what we saw.

Mom's First - I would be amiss if I failed to mention that Colleen ripped a hole in the elbow of this dress. But as her mom said, its been in a box for 27 years so its not a big deal.


Grandma - very poofy.


I personally think Colleen looks amazing in both these dresses and can't wait to see her in her real wedding dress on our special day.

The Ring

Every time we tell people we are engaged they ask the same three questions.

1. How did he propose?
2. Have you set a date yet?
3. Can I see the ring?

For the answer to question one, please see our earlier posts. The answer to question two is we are still working on it and for question three see the pictures below.

Enjoy!

Colleen's Version of the Proposal

It was a very snowy Friday and I got out of work early. I went over to Josh's house because he had a great date night planned for us. I had no idea what we were going to do at all until I saw that he was looking up train schedules online and realized that we were going to the city.

So, we braved the snow and went to the train station. The trains were running a little late because of the storm, but it finally came. The train car that ended up having seats had no heat, but we sat there anyway.

So we get to Grand Central and I'm so excited by this point because I have no idea what's going on. Josh at this point wants to throw up because he knows exactly what's going on. So, I ask him where we are going and he said we are just going to start walking.

We start walking down the streets and the snow, at this point, has turned to wintry mix in New York. So we continue walking and get to Bryant Park. We walk through the park until we get to a bunch of chairs and tables. Everything is covered in perfect snow and there is no one in the park. It was so nice and peaceful. So, we stop at the tables and chairs and Josh tells me that we are going to do an activity. At first I was thinking, what? It's freezing out here. I didn't say that of course, I said, "So, what are we doing?"

Josh knows that I really love Christmas and how I've always loved decorating the tree with ornaments because I love that each ornament means something. Josh and I never got to decorate a tree together and that's what we would be doing. At this point, I started to forget that it was cold outside and got excited because he pulled a mini Christmas tree out from his bag. I was so shocked. It was so cute. He put it on one of the snow covered tables. Then he told me that he was going to have me unwrap ornaments that he got me that symbolized different parts of our relationship. My eyes lite up then.

The first ornament was a bulldog. It was our first date. The food there was actually not that great and the place is closed now, but that doesn't mean anything. So I hung the bulldog on the tree.

The second ornament was a tree frog. It was from our date at the Maritime Center. I love that place. It's so cool.

The third ornament was a bucket of popcorn and a movie on it that said Planet Earth. This was from our first kiss. ;)

The fourth ornament was a grand piano. On the piano it said Billy Joel and it had the date we went to the concert. That was the best concert I have ever gone to. We were so close to him and he played the best songs.

The fifth ornament was of a bowling ball, a bowling bag, and bowling shoes. It almost looks like a little person. It was so funny because right away it made me think of when my parents came up to surprise us and after an intense game of mini golf, we played a couple exciting games of bowling. I was so tired that night.

The last ornament was of the Radio City sign and a Rockette standing right next to it. I immediately started to get really excited.

Then Josh said to me, "And that's what we are doing tonight to celebrate."

I was like "Yay! Let's celebrate!"

Then he said to me, "You don't even know what we are celebrating."

I was like, "Oh yeah, what are we celebrating?'

Then Josh got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! All I could say was "Oh my Gosh" about 40-50 times covering my mouth, then I realized I didn't give him an answer and said "Oh my Gosh Josh, YES!!"

Then we hugged and cried and I didn't want to let go of him.