Words of Willow

Meet our new Willow Writer, Melissa! Read her awesome love story!

December 20, 2013 at 2:41 pm (Willow Writers) (engagement stories, love, love story, proposal stories, the willow room, wedding blogs, wedding ideas, wedding planning, wedding venues, weddings, willow room, willow room brides, willow room weddings, willow writers)

Hi there! My name is Melissa and I am a Willow Room bride-to-be! Our wedding will be November 8, 2014, and my fiancé Chad and I couldn’t be more excited! From the moment we first walked into The Willow Room, we knew it was everything we had dreamed of. I am so grateful to have been asked to share our adventure with you all! It couldn’t be a more perfect time for me to start, because it was just this time of year, my favorite time of the year, when it all began.

New year’s Eve/Our fourth official date

So… I’ll start at the beginning. Ironically, Chad and I first met just before the holidays two years ago, being set up by a mutual friend, Joe.  We had met a few times before and we had even worked for the same company for a short time, me in Human Resources and Chad in Industrial Safety. We knew each other well enough to exchange awkward yet polite “hellos” or “good mornings” on the rare occasions when we passed in the hallway, but that was the extent of our relationship.  Chad left the company to become a partner in a consulting business and every so often I would ask Joe how he was doing, and Chad would do the same. So finally, on December 15^th 2011, Joe asked us both to meet him for dinner.  That night, I walked into the restaurant and Chad was the first person I saw, our eyes locked, and just like in the movies, it was magic.  A week later, we went on our first “real” date (just the 2 of us this time)  and it was the best first date I could have ever imagined. It was as if we had known each other our entire lives, and we actually shut the restaurant down because neither one of us wanted the night to ever end. From that day on, we were practically inseparable.  After about four months of dating, I knew I had found the one.

Seven months down, the first vacation with my family. That’s our dog Lucy 🙂

Fast-forward 13 months to a snowy Sunday afternoon in January 2013.  Over a quick lunch at Chipotle that day, out of the blue Chad said to me that he wanted to plan a trip.  I had started back to school at Seton Hill the fall prior, and full-time work and full-time school can take a toll on a girl, especially in mid-January. So of course, I immediately fell in love with the thought of a warm sandy beach or just any change of scenery. We synced our schedules and realized the best time for us to go would be the 1^st week of April, my spring break and also the week of my birthday.

After the dates were set, I had no involvement in the vacation planning process; in fact I had no idea where in the world we were even going, the entire trip was a complete surprise. It became a bit of a game between us as to where we were going, Chad would joke that it was somewhere even colder than we are. But finally, after 2 ½ months of waiting, we were off and when we got to the airport that morning, it was finally revealed that we were going to St. Martin.

We immediately fell in love with the entire island and on the 3^rd day of the trip, my birthday, we decided to take a sunset dinner cruise to a little French restaurant on the other side of the island. After a PERFECT evening, we headed back to our resort. Chad asked me to take a walk with him down to the beach. As we stood in the sand and stared at the ocean, he got down on one knee and proposed! It was the greatest night of my life!!

On the Sunset Harbor cruise, just a few hours before he proposed!!

Now he we are, just one short week away from Christmas, and we’ve been engaged for over eight months already!! The time has flown by quite quickly.

We’ve done some planning, but we still have lots to go, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

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