Our Love Story

So I was originally planning to link up with From Mrs. to Mama next week, but after seeing so many of your love stories, I decided I just couldn’t wait! I thought this was such a sweet idea, and I’ve loved reading so many of my favorite bloggers’ answers to these questions. The link-up is open through Valentine’s Day…which is less than a week away! 

Here is our love story 🙂 

How long have you and your significant other been together?

 We’ve been together four years…in a way it seems like we’ve been together forever, but in a way the time has flown by. This is actually our 5th Valentine’s Day together though, because we started dating in the beginning of February and Valentine’s Day weekend 2008 was kind of when we made it official, like bf/gf status…ha. 

How did you meet? {What’s your “love” story?}

 Cameron and I met at the University of Michigan, and because we were both in the Greek system and his fraternity house was next to my sorority house I think I must have officially “met” him sometime during freshman year of college…well, at least we’ve been Facebook friends since freshman year, but during the beginning of college was sort of when you FB friend everyone you come in contact with so I’m not entirely sure how/when we met. During college, I wasn’t ever really in a serious relationship person, I was just kind of single, dating different people, and having fun with my friends, whereas Cam was definitely more of a serious relationship guy. 

In November of 2007, I was out with with of my best girlfriends at our favorite bar and everyone was out because it was the night before most people were going home for Thanksgiving and no one had class the next day. My friend who I came to the bar with was caught up in some drama with some guy who she was seeing at the time, so I thought I’d go walk around and see who else was there that I knew because this was during that awesome point in college where everyone in the Greek system would go to the same bar so I knew like 75% of the people there. I ended up running into this guy I was went to high school with and he happened to be hanging out with Cam. I was really confused why they were hanging out because I didn’t even realize they knew each other and they were in two different fraternities. (Turns out they had German class together that semester) I ended up hanging out with the 2 of them that night, and then all of the sudden this guy I went to high school with was about to get in a fight with some people and was getting kicked out of the bar (classy) so Cam and I just left with him. They walked me back to my apartment, but once my friend from high school started heading back to his apartment, Cam and I decided to get some pizza. He walked me home, there was a brief makeout sesh in the hallway of my apartment, Cam asked for my number, I gave it to him, and we went our separate ways. 

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Cam sent me a Facebook message to say hi because he said he didn’t get any cell phone reception at his house (which I thought was a total blow-off…but after going to his house, I realized he was telling the truth!). Once we got back to school, I never really heard from him, which I thought was a little weird because he seemed like a nice person, but whatever. I went home for Christmas break and that was that. When I got back for second semester of junior year, one of my friends and I decided to join this student organization called MPowered, which was an entrepreneurship group that was mainly all business students and engineers and they were looking for some communication majors to help them with marketing. My friend and I thought it would be a good way to meet guys resume builder, so we joined and went to the first exec board meeting in mid-January. And who just happened to be in the exec board meeting? Cameron. We actually ended up sitting next to each other because there were no other open seats, and I was thinking welllll this is a little awkward. Because Cam was in charge of the finances for MPowered and I had to spend money for different advertising things, so I was always having to talk to him about all the money I was spending (a foreshadowing of things to come…ha). One night at the very end of January, he ended up texting me to see if I want to hang out with him and another one of our good mutual friends. Ironically, some of Cam’s best friends in his fraternity were people I knew from my dorm freshman year/from my bible study/high school, so it’s kind of suprising that we didn’t meet before. Anyway, we went out, hit it off (our friend Jeff who we were out with kept leaving to go talk to other people at the bar because I think he could tell he was turning into a third wheel on this friendly little outing), and then Cam and I ended up asking each other to our date parties that were coming up in February.

Our first date party together for my sorority, went went to a Piston’s game! February 2008

(Oh and I did ask him about why he never called me, and he said it was because he asked around in his fraternity to see if I was dating anyone and a bunch of people told him I was seeing this guy who was really involved in student government, so he said he just figured I was and never called. It’s true I did go on a few dates with that guy earlier on in the fall, but we were never really “dating” and things were long over at the point I met Cam. A little misinformation there…)

We hung out pretty much everyday during the month of February, and right from the start, everything just seemed right. The more I got to know Cam, the more I liked him, and he was so much different than people I dated in the past. There was never any game playing or wondering what was going on, he was always extremely genuine and showed me that he cared. Right from the start, we could tell that this was different and I really don’t know how to explain it except that it felt like I had finally found this thing that was missing. My other half.

After about a month of hanging out, Cam and I both left for Spring Break, him to New York with friends, and me to Italy with friends. I was really surprised about how much I missed him, and I think it was during that time apart that I really realized how strong my feelings were. Because I didn’t have a phone in Italy, we exchanged sweet emails, and although I was having fun on my trip, I couldn’t wait to get back. One thing I distinctly remember is my friend Lisa and I walking around Siena one afternoon (after a little too much wine) and we were just talking about life and the future and getting married and having kids, and when we were talking I realized that I could never see Cam not being there. I could never envision us breaking up, or marrying someone else, or him not being in my life. 

When we got back from Italy, Cam and I were both really happy to see each other and picked up right where we left off. We continued to date through the rest of junior year, and then that summer Cam did an internship in Ann Arbor, Michigan instead of going home to Oregon, and so we saw each other every weekend. At the end of the summer, I went out to Oregon with him to visit his family and it was a really great trip. At that point, things were really serious and we had already begun to talk about getting married…

(We actually went and looked at engagement rings when we were in Oregon and we found a ring that we both loved, so it’s not like getting engaged came totally out of the blue. I thought Cam was going to get the ring and then it still had to be sized and so I assumed he was going to have his parents bring it out for his birthday in October and that he’d propose sometime after that. Little did I know he was actually able to get the ring sized before the end of our trip and bring it back with him from Oregon! It didn’t bother me at all that I knew that he was going to propose at some point, I’m kind of a control freak and I’m glad that we were able to pick out the ring together, and I was still surprised about the proposal because I didn’t know how or when he’d actually pop the question)

Tell us how he proposed?

 Cameron
proposed at midnight on Sept. 14, 2008 underneath the Engineering Arch
right in the middle of campus. Obviously U of M is very meaningful to us since it’s where we met and fell in love, so I couldn’t have imagined getting engaged anywhere else. We both love all the history and tradition at Michigan, so Cam tied that into his proposal which was perfect. At freshman orientation, they tell you about all these different Michigan legends, and one of those old legends says that whoever you kiss under the Engineering Arch at midnight is who you’re going to marry. The day Cam proposed, we went out for a nice dinner at this restaurant called The Gandy Dancer and then we were just hanging out at his house. Around 11:30, Cam suggested we go for a walk, which I thought was really odd since it was kind of rainy and it was just kind of random, but we went. We walked around campus and talked until we ended up under the Engineering Arch right at midnight, and Cam got down on one knee when we were underneath the arch and asked me to marry him. It was absolute perfect and of course I said yes! 

If married, how long have you been married? 

 We got married on June 6, 2009…almost 3 years ago!

 

 

 
If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small
wedding? 

 We got married at First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan which is right by U of M’s campus and our fraternity/sorority houses. We had our reception at the Ann Arbor City Club, which is also right near campus. We had what I would consider a medium-sized wedding (about 175 people) and it was so wonderful to be able to celebrate our love with all of our family and friends!

 

 

  

You can find out more about the details of our wedding here.

 

 

Do you
have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share!

 Honestly, there are too many to share! We are both always calling each other random nonsensical words that usually have something to do with rhyming the other persons name to something, it’s so silly but it amuses us to no end (and we do it to the dog too). In high school, some of my good friends called me Janus (so dumb haha) and ever since they mentioned it to Cam, he likes to make nicknames out of that…like Janus Joppelganger and just really random things. He also calls me all sorts of normal sweet nicknames, Sweet Pea is probably my favorite. I call him Cameron Bear quite often.

 

 

Name 3 things you love most about your honey.

  1. His integrity

2. His intelligence

3. His eyes/long eyelashes

4. His sense of humor

5. How well he loves me

(I couldn’t decide on three!)

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose
petals?

 Cam is a flowers/wine type of guy, mainly because he knows that I love getting flowers! He usually sends them to me on my birthday and on Valentine’s day, so we’ll see if that tradition continues!

 

 

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a
movie in and relax on the couch?

 I would definitely enjoy a sunset dinner on the beach, and we’ve definitely enjoyed a few of those over the past 4 years. However, I so love just being in my sweats, cuddled up on the couch, and watching a movie together especially in the winter! It’s so cozy and I love that it’s a simple pleasure we can enjoy on a random weeknight.

10. Tell us one thing you’d like to do with your significant other one day. If
you could do anything? Go anywhere?

 If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know that Cameron and I love to travel. Fortunately, we’ve gotten to do a lot of it together (both domestic and international), however, there are still so many places we haven’t seen. If we could go anywhere, I’d love to go to Thailand/Israel/Norway/Argentina/Fiji/Slovenia/Turkey/Croatia/Brazil/New Zealand/or back to Italy/France/Switzerland…any of those would be great! 

11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine’s Day. 

Originally, our plan for V-day was to stay home and cook a nice dinner…but since I’ve been working from home, I’ve been in the house pretty much all.day.every.day. Which is why I recently decided we should change our plans and go out to dinner instead so I can actually have a reason to change out of workout clothes…and by workout clothes I mean pajamas (let’s be honest). Cam is in charge of making the reservations, so I’m not sure where we’re going…I want to be surprised!

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine’s day?

 We don’t generally exchange big gifts on Valentine’s Day, usually going out for a nice dinner is our gift to each other. All I really want is a card for Valentine’s Day, I love getting cards and I save them all. We always get each other birthday, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day cards and they’re definitely something that I cherish. Cam and I are both the kind of people where if there’s something we really really want, we just buy it so we don’t do a lot of presents for each other. We’d rather spend the money on travel versus buying each other big gifts.

 

 

13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and
full of love. 

 Show grace towards one another, and forgive when the other person has made a mistake. I tend to have a little bit of a temper and get mad over silly things, and then I hold on to that anger much longer than I should even after Cam apologizes. Cam is very good about genuinely forgiving me after I apologize for something and not holding a grudge, and I’m slowly but surely learning to do this. Life is way too short to bicker over stupid things, so I think the sooner you can just let go of the little stuff, the more time you can spend being happy and just really loving each other.

 

 

14.  Show us a picture of what love means to you.

  

So there you have it, that’s our story! 🙂

Let me know if you’re linking up because I’d love to read yours! Have a great day everyone! Xoxo