Lucky 13

 13 years ago I married a man I had only known for 10 months, and it has turned out to be the single biggest and best decision I ever decided on.

Here's our story;

- May 1999 - 

Because of the SEVER lack of decent guys in the south, I became a member of www.christianmatchmaker.com. At the prompt of the server I put in my search criteria; 

height - taller than me 5'9" 

weight - healthy for a man of stature

religion - Christian/charismatic/non denominational

hair color - dark 

and eye color - blue 

Yes, I was absolutely looking for a tall, dark haired, blue eyed man. You need to understand that blue eyes are very rare in the south, especially with dark hair, and as a result I'm a BIG sucker for that combo.

My list of matches was promptly returned to me, and at the very top, matching the highest percentage of my criteria, was a Matthew Neher from MN. I clicked on his profile to look at his pictures. None of them were great, far away, ball cap and sunglasses, but he wasn't beer bellied and buck toothed so I figured it was safe to proceed. I sent him a short message about myself and asked him if he would like to chat sometime.

That began 4 months of writing back and forth twice a day, chatting in the evenings and eventually phone calls on the weekends, his parents had free long distance then. I really wanted him to call me so I took the sneaky road and asked him to describe what his voice sounded like, which ultimately ended up with him saying "Why don't I just call you and you can hear for yourself?" Mission accomplished! I went on a few blind dates during those 4 months, non of whom I was attracted to in the slightest, and would always come home, get on the computer and tell Matt all about them. During that time he went on a trip with his family to Costa Rica where his sister got married, and when he returned he sent me some pictures, one of which was one of his family. I remember waiting for it to load from the top down, but my wait was not wasted. THIS picture was not far away, it was not with sunglasses and it was not a disappointment. I remember my heart skipping a beat and the feeling of my breath catching in my throat as I say his gorgeous blue eves, his incredible smile and his sexy tan for the first time. I was in the office and hollered across the house, "Momma, come here! .... Momma, he's SO handsome!"

- September 1999 -

After about 4 months, he asked if he could come to visit me in TN. I was surprised that anyone would want to come that far just for me, but told him that if he wanted to spend his money on the trip that he could come. Up until this point he hadn't even seen any pictures of me yet. We didn't have a camera, and back them you had to go somewhere and have them scanned and save them to a floppy disk and then load them on the computer. lol His plan was to take a 3 day weekend, drive down one day, spend a day with me and drive back on the 3rd day. About 1 month before he was going to come I finally got some decent pictures of myself taken and developed and scanned and saved and emailed to him. When he got the pictures he changed his trip from 4 days to 6 days and he flew instead of driving. lol I tease him about it and say "You must have liked what you saw huh?" He just chuckles, pats me on the leg and says "I married you didn't I" :-)

The day I went to pick him up from the airport, my Mom asked me if I wanted her to go with me and I sad "NO." He had told me what he was going to be wearing so I could find him, but I had never picked anyone up from the airport before so I didn't know that I could go to his gate, I didn't know how to look up his flight #, I didn't know how to find his baggage claim. I took a book to read while I waited for him even though I knew I wouldn't be able to read a flippin' thing. So, when I got there, I planted myself in a row of chairs just outside the main gate area (it was a fairly small airport) and put my nose in my book thinking, "I'm not going to sit here staring at everyone as they come out. He knows what I look like.  I'll let him see me first." All these people started filing out and pretty soon no one else was coming out and no one had acted like they knew me, so I looked up and saw from the back what I thought looked like the clothes he had described to me. I thought "JUST great! Now I have to go find him." I made my way down to baggage claim and tried to discreetly locate him without being totally obvious that I was looking for someone I didn't know. I spotted the back of the guy I suspected to be him and was about to wrap my arms around him from behind in a hug and thought "Wait! What if it's the wrong guy and I hug him and that would just be horribly embarrassing." Of course saying his name to see if he turned around didn't even occur to me at the time, so instead I gently tugged on the bill of the hat he was wearing backwards and braced myself for the unknown. He turned around and flashed a big recognizing smile at me and I got momentarily lost in his icy blue peepers. We hugged, exchanges niceties about his flight, got his luggage and went to the car. I was so twitterpated (and unfamiliar with the airport) that it took me 3 times of exiting on the wrong interstate to get us going in the correct direction to home. I think I even ran a couple stop lights. lol 

We went straight to a family birthday party where ALL the aunts and uncles and cousins and such were waiting for us to arrive. Talk about trial by fire! All the females were giving me thumbs up signs when they thought he wasn't looking and my Papaw seemed to approve of him as well. My family is very very musical and when it was time to sing Happy Birthday we all busted out in 3 part harmony in various octaves and the look on Matt's face was priceless. It was somewhere between "What the hell just happened?" "I have no clue where to sing" and "That's pretty damn cool, do it again." He survived the first family party without a scratch to show for it and by the end of the 6th day my heart was lost. He kissed me for the first time the night before he left and told me "I love you" before he got on the plane the next day. I sobbed all the way back to the parking ramp because we didn't know when we would see each other again.

- October  1999 - 

He worked as much over time as he could get his hands on for the next month and bought me a plane ticket for a visit to MN. I actually freaked out and changed my mind a few days before I was supposed to go. My Mom said "We're all so sad that you're not going, and I can tell that you're sad too. You should go. I know you want to." and happily I did go. Matt's friends have told me that those few days I had decided not to go they "have never seen him so sad." I visited to 2 weeks, and got to meet his family, his friends and his church. When my Mom picked me up from the airport she said "How was your trip?" "It was good" I replied "I'm moving to MN." She said "I know." On the was home we stopped at a friends consignment shop and I bought my wedding dress.

- December 8th 1999 -

Matt's Mother, Father and Brother drive to TN, collect me, my things and my car and I move to his parents house in MN.

- December 10th 1999 -

Matt told me to be ready when he got back from work so we could go out for a date. He shows up with a single red rose and whisks me off to Hunan Garden, a Chinese restaurant. At some point during dinner, as he sat across the table from me, he says "Do you want to hear something cool? My brother-in-law proposed to my sister at that table big round table over there." He tells me how they had to sneak the ring in for his BIL and get it to him without her knowing and how they were all there when it happened. Then he says "Want to hear something else cool? This is where I want to ask you to marry me." At this point he says he paused for dramatic effect before continuing, but it felt like a desperately dangling participle that needed to be rescued so I said "So...are you asking me to marry you or are you telling me that at some point in the future you're going to ask me to marry you?" He let out a bit of a sigh, like someone had ruined the punchline of his favorite joke, and said "No, I'm asking you to marry me. Will you marry me?" I actually didn't respond right away, not because I didn't know what my answer was, but because I was waiting for the flood of tears and emotion that I had always expected to overtake me at this momentous occasion in my life. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled and oh so very happy, it just wasn't manifesting quite like I had anticipated. Expectations set up by TV & movies are so very unrealistic. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds but Matt says it was the longest 3 seconds of his life before I answered yes. We kissed across the table, finished our meal, walked out arm in arm and returned home to tell his parents and call my Mother. He'd tried all day to get a hold of her to ask permission to marry me, but was repeatedly unsuccessful. He's always been more of a "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" kind of guy anyway. lol Everyone was thrilled for us, and I think my Mom cried. He didn't have a ring because he wanted to me to pick out exactly what I wanted. So 2 or 3 days later we went and bought my engagement ring. I think one of the most uncomfortable questions I've ever had to ask him was "How much can I spend on it?" lol

- February 5th 2000 -

His Mom and I turbo charged the planning phase. I already had my dress I picked out the brides maids dresses in 1 store and 15 minutes. One of his aunts did the cake, another did the catering, and less than 2 months later we were husband & wife. My Pappaw gave me away. My Mom did our exchanging of the vows. His uncle did the exchanging of the rings, and I surprised him with a love song. We were surrounded by his family and friends, people I didn't know at the time but they loved him and because he loved me, so did they. We honeymooned in the Smoky Mountains of TN. And when we got back, we lived with his parents for a week before settling into our first place together, a tiny little duplex in Byron with a 13" tv, bachelor furniture, no air conditioning and no washer or dryer. It was my castle, and I couldn't have been happier because I was with my prince. I had found my tall, dark & handsome, blue eyed man and I was eager to see where the road would take us.