Our Story
The short version of our story goes like this: We met, on Kyle’s 26th birthday, at the wedding of mutual friends Meg and Eric in Lawrence, Kansas, and started dating shortly thereafter. But almost as interesting as the way we met are all the ways we didn’t meet until then.
Had we not wanted to fly all the way out to Kansas to meet, we could have used any of the following methods. If Laura had attended a summer get-together —one that fast became a summertime institution— at the lovely Meg’s grandmother’s house on Lake Buel in the summer of 2004 instead of working on the Kerry campaign in Ohio, things might have been different. Or, if Kyle had attended the same get-together either of the following two summers instead of traipsing about Mexico.
But then, of course, there was no good reason we had to meet through Meg and Eric at all, since Laura was unsuspectingly yet systematically befriending, in college, nearly everybody Kyle had known in high school. But meet we did when we arrived in Lawrence and, by a twist of fate, were assigned the same hotel room at the wedding of our friends. Laura quickly realized that, if she hoped to continue flirting with this dashing young fellow, she couldn’t possibly let him catch her brushing her teeth or any other such mundane act, and swiftly maneuvered her way onto someone else’s couch.
By the end of the weekend, it was clear that something was going on between our two heroes. Laura plotted a strategy to get her number onto Kyle’s cell phone. Kyle proposed meeting in New York City to see a friend of his sing in a free upcoming opera. Yet things still did not go smoothly. Back home in Jersey City, Laura sent Kyle an email and, when she got no reply, wrote him off. Kyle, on the other hand, never received any such email, which bounced back to Laura’s account, with the approximate haste of the US postal system, three days later. That same day, Laura’s phone rang. And rang. And rang. And went to voicemail.
Kyle left a non-committal message about possibly following up on plans. Shortly thereafter, Laura left her own, somewhat more incriminating voicemail on Kyle’s phone. “Hi,” she said. “You might remember me from the wedding. I’m Meg’s friend from England. But I’m not English. But I speak English.” (Parenthetically, one of Kyle’s only regrets is having deleted this voicemail).
Eventually, a date was made for two weeks later. Kyle realized quickly, in the ensuing daily email and phone correspondence, that this was a terrible idea, and asked Laura if he could take her out to dinner sooner (secretly fearing she would meet another similar boy at the other, similar wedding she would attend that weekend). Laura’s reply was, and we quote, “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Kyle was about 95% certain that 42 exclamation points meant “yes,” but still called a friend to confirm.
Three days, a bit of Thai food, and some rice pudding later, Kyle brought Laura home to meet his mother.
For Kyle, the rest of the summer consisted roughly of the following: Providence ⇄ Jersey City. Less than a year later, Laura left New York for good to become a Providence gal.
The Proposal
Kyle proposed at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Mexico!
He had planned popping the question on the beach in the Caribbean, but we couldn’t get a place, so we did the second part of our trip — the city part — first. So then the plan was to propose at midnight amidst crazy New Year’s celebrations. As usual, that didn’t really work out either.
We were in the city of Merida, which is great, and the hostel is right on the center square, which is usually crazy with life. But oddly, when we went out for midnight the place was eerily quiet. It was just about 30 Americans walking around like ”¿where’s the party at?”. We thought maybe the Mexicans were in Mass, as is their wont (it turns out that they were probably home with their families).
So at 5 of midnight Laura said, ”I guess we’ll just kiss at midnight and go to bed.” Kyle said that he might have a surprise for her at midnight, and Laura replied, with feigned excitement, ”two kisses!?!” So at midnight we went to a corner of the square and Kyle got down on one knee. He said that he had thought about waiting until we were on the beach, but that he didn’t want to spend one second of 2009 not engaged to Laura 
The official story goes that Laura said yes, but she actually just kissed Kyle until he demanded, “OK, so can you say ‘yes’ already!?!”
She happily complied, and gave him an engagement watch she had bought, and brought, just in case.
By the time they got home from vacation, Laura had selected a date and almost secured a location. And then, for the next 18 months, they waited…
