Neither of us planned to get married, yet here we are!
Our first date took place almost three years ago, on 28 August 2007, in District, a wine bar. You probably would like to hear that we fell in love with each other at a first sight, but there were no sparks, thunder and lightning.. In fact it was almost lights out: I nearly left before Anil showed up as he was a few minutes late. I was raised in a culture in which women are used to old school chivalry (think about all possible stereotypes you have about a chivalrous male: kissing hands, opening doors etc - you get the point) and with the expectation that men show up on dates not on, but actually before time...
Anil was the very first person I went for a date with after moving to the US a few months earlier, so I did not have any personal experience with the American style of dating. But based on all the romantic Hollywood movies that I saw before coming here, I was expecting him to swoop in on our date on a white horse wearing a perfectly tailored Armani suite holding a bunch of red roses in one of his hands: a romantic knight in Armani armour! Instead, Anil walked in a few minutes late, without the horse, without the flowers and wearing "Crocks"...
Still, our first date was perfect - much better than any I ever saw in the movies :). I was laughing all the way through it. Anil was doing the majority of talking (this is still the case in our relationship even today) and he was extremely witty, charming and entertaining. After asking me a few questions, he "analyzed" my personality and I was surprised that almost everything he said about me was correct… Clearly, he had me all figured out by then and at the end of the evening he used this knowledge to setup a second date.
Our second date took place a whole month later as in the meantime I had been traveling with my friends. I was very impressed that Anil contacted me precisely on the day that I told him I would be coming back from my trip. Clearly, the man knows what he wants and how to get it :).
On the third date Anil spontaneously took me to Treasure Island and I think soon after that I realized that I was falling in love with him. And somehow, with time, he also fell in love with me. There were many obstacles on our way to where we are today, and several times we considered splitting up, due to the cultural differences and other challenges. However, the more we tried to move apart, the closer we got to each other. Being together feels very natural to us and it is difficult to even imagine how life would be if we had never met.
When we started talking about getting married around a year ago, Anil told me that in Hinduism people believe that one gets married not for one, but for several lifetimes, and whom we meet in this life stems from our past assosciations. When I heard that, I immediately wanted to say that clearly we have had several lifetimes of practice already, since we fit with each other so perfectly. At the same time, it still feels like there is a lot of shared joy ahead of us.
Thus, on 9th of May 2010, our adventure will officially begin again and we would love for you to be part of it. Please stop by at our wedding ceremony and/or reception, or at least say hi through the guest book if you can not make it in person.
Here we are on 9th of May 2010:
