I wrote this for our wedding website, which is soon to be defunct as our wedding was last weekend, but I just want to keep it somewhere for posterity because I’m terrible at writing things down as of late (and also, why am I even explaining this? No one looks at this blog anymore, it’s not 2011.)
On August 17th, 2013 Allison awoke at three o'clock in the morning and embarked on a sunrise hike with one of her best friends. The middle hours of the day were filled with too little food, too much coffee, two trips to Vermont, and finally, a sunset hike. Mike's day started a little later, waking around 10am and setting out for a full ten-hour day of work. By nightfall, he was exhausted and ready to head home, but a text from a friend encouraging him to attend a gathering changed his plans. A bit of coaxing from Allison's friend and she decided 'Why not stay awake for a full twenty-four consecutive hours' and went to the same gathering of mutual friends. And so, Allison and Mike crossed paths for the first substantial time.
It wasn't 'love at first sight' (because that's not a thing that exists). It was 'hey, we both really like each other but you're moving to a different country in four weeks so why are we even bothering, this is insane, right?'. Because, yeah, four weeks from the day they met, Allison was moving to Newcastle upon Tyne, England for a year-long graduate program. Less than ideal circumstances to embark upon a relationship. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. The day before Allison left, they took the same sunrise hike she'd taken the day they met. The weather was overcast and bleak, but the moment was a significant one. They decided 'why not, let's see where this goes' because the thought of not trying was just too sad. Nearly the entire first year of their relationship was spent on different continents. They utilized Skype, bad wifi connections, and (super cheap) British data plans to the fullest. Allison visited New York and Mike took his first transatlantic flight to spend a week split between Scotland and England. He left and there was yet another airport goodbye and a lot of tears followed by a long train ride full of City and Colour songs back to England for Allison and a much longer flight to New York full of turbulence for Mike. And finally, ten months later, Allison left Geordie-land for the final time and returned to the United States.
As the cliche goes, the rest is history. Allison and Mike moved in together- Allison bought too many coffee mugs and candles, Mike bought too many varieties of coffee makers and sauce pans and they shoved it all into a tiny apartment and made it their (temporary) home. Their family quickly grew to include two loving (cat) children, Maverick and Merlin. They spent their initial months elated to finally be on the same continent and the following months further elated that they loved each other when they were in the same city as much as they did when they were 3,000 miles (including an ocean) apart. Fourteen months after Allison's return, on her twenty-ninth birthday, they took that same sunrise hike one more time and this time, Mike proposed. His words were rushed and his nerves were evident, but once again, the moment was a perfect one.
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