Happy Hearts Day

Posted by brideblog

Posted: February 14, 2008 - 8:29 am

Today, the paper ran a series of love stories based on a cinematic genre. So, I thought I'd take us back to the beginning... where this Bride 2 Be thing all started...

An Officer and a Gentleman Meets Sleepless in...Chicago

I need to be careful how I phrase the story of how we met. When word of our courtship spread through my family, my Great-Aunt Marian called me up and asked, “So, you met this boy on the Internet??!!” “No, Auntie, it’s not like that!" .

We met in Dallas, Texas, but our affections grew via e-mail across 3,000 miles. He was a specialized dentist for the U.S. Air Force, stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, and a member of a professional association for specialized dentists. I was a staff member of this association for specialized dentists, stationed in Chicago, Illinois. At the Association’s 2005 annual meeting in Dallas, he was involved in one of the student research programs I staffed. He was nothing but a gentleman for the handful of interactions we had. He even stopped by our staff table on the last night of the meeting, just to say hello and thank us for a good meeting experience. He was decked out to the nines in his military “mess dress,” code for military tuxedo. I said, “You’re quite welcome, Dr. Joyce.”

Only his name wasn’t Dr. Joyce. He politely corrected me, and I apologized profusely. I think I even blushed, and believe me: I’m not the blushing type. A few months later, he replied to a mass e-mail I sent out thanking all the members for participating in our program. He wrote back, saying he’d be happy to help out again at next year’s meeting in Hawaii, as long as he could wear a grass skirt. Did I mention he is 6’2”? The visual image I had of him judging residents’ research presentations in a grass skirt made me laugh out loud. As a rule, there aren’t too many “jokesta’s” involved in endodontic research. And it’s a rare occasion that a little “tongue and cheek” would appear in member correspondence, outside of clinical references. But this e-mail was amusing and refreshing--- and nothing but polite.

He also said not to worry about the mistaken identity, but assured me that he is a much better looking “Dr. Joyce.” I wrote him back, expressing again my embarrasment about calling him the wrong name, and our gratitude for his continued participation in the program and that he is more than welcome to wear a grass skirt but professional attire under the grass skirt is still required. We became pen-pals from that point on, discovering that we both shared a love for the outdoors, college sports, and politically incorrect humor. Our correspondence was further sparked by the fact that neither of us is one to mince words.

And then we fell in love. To this day, almost three years after we first met in Dallas, he still doesn’t let me forget that I called him the wrong name.

Moral of the story is: a little “tongue and cheek” goes a long way.

But if you ask my fiancé, he’ll tell you that all he gets these days is “lip.”

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