Kevin and Mandi

Hey everybody! This will be the new home for everything Kevin and Mandi. We’ll be focusing on wedding stuff until the big day - June 12, 2010.

How We Met

(according to Kevin)

Picture it: New Year’s Eve 2007 (or is it 2008 since that was the new year?). I was sitting at a table playing euchre at Ryan and Larry’s 80s in ‘08 party, wearing a stylish ensemble of khaki pants, blue striped shirt, blue sweater tied around my neck, golf visor, and boat shoes - think Troy from The Goonies. In walks Lisa and a brown-haired beauty in a purple dress and crimped hair. I thought to himself, “Who is this lovely stranger?” It turns out we had actually met at Lisa’s housewarming party a couple months earlier, but I totally didn’t remember that. I spent the evening wanting to talk to Mandi, but I was a bit of a pansy and never got up enough courage to say more than a few words to her. Eventually I managed to strike up a conversation and we ended up talking until the wee hours of the morning. Sadly I had to leave to let the dog out and I didn’t think to get Mandi’s number. After kicking myself all the way home for being so stupid I looked Mandi up on MySpace and sent her a message as soon as I got home. And the rest is history.

How We Met

(according to Mandi)

Wanting to do something new for New Year’s Eve, I pretty much invited myself to a party that my friend Lisa was going to.  It was themed 80’s in ‘08 which meant I needed to come up with a sweet costume.  My mom and I found a purple prom dress at Salvation Army and after my dad stich-witcheryed the crap out of it, I was ready to go.  When we showed up to Ryan and Larry’s house, the party was a little slow.  I noticed some people playing cards at the dining room table but moved downstairs to were the food and drinks were.  After a bit of a slow start, the party started taking off with drinking Jenga, Twister, Tangka and an impromptu conga line.  I knew that Kevin had been watching me most of the night but didn’t think anything of it because I lived in Atlanta and I knew he lived in MI.  As the party started to wide down, Kevin finally worked up the nerve to talk to me.  We ended up talking until morning then he left without saying good-bye.  I never thought I’d see Kevin again until I made it back to ATL and found a message waiting for me in my MySpace inbox.  And I guess the rest is history…

Engagement

I asked Mandi to marry me on May 21, 2009. I knew that she really missed her friends in Atlanta and that she would want to tell them in person, so I emailed her friend Priscilla to figure out a weekend when we could come visit. The best weekend turned out to be Memorial Day weekend, so I booked a flight and we kept it a secret from Mandi. I told Mandi that she would need to get Friday of Memorial Day weekend off so we could go out of town, but I didn’t tell her where we were going. Mandi had bought me tickets to the Billy Joel and Elton John concert on Thursday for Valentine’s Day, so I figured we would just get a hotel after the concert and fly out Friday morning. A couple days before the trip I told Mandi that we were going to Atlanta for the weekend so that she would know what to pack. On Thursday I took the day off so I could pick up the ring and get things ready for the big moment. When Mandi got home from work she was rushing around gathering the last few items to pack in her bag. I told her that she got a new magazine in the mail and handed her a special edition of “Mandi & Kevin.” You see, Mandi has a thing for celebrity gossip magazines so I made a mock magazine cover based on her favorite one, “Life & Style.” I used pictures from our trip to Cape Cod, a wedding we went to in May, a concert in February, and a picture of Chester. Each picture had a witty caption. The main caption/headline read: “Will she say yes? Kevin asks the big question.” When I handed Mandi the magazine it took her a moment to realize what was going on. It finally sank in when I pulled out the ring. At that moment I think I stood there with a dumb look on my face and said something like, “Well, will you?” She responded that I better get down on one knee and ask, so I did. We spent the next few minutes hugging, kissing, laughing, and generally being happy. Then we had to rush out the door to get to the concert. We both called our parents and Mandi called a couple friends as we drove to the concert, but otherwise we kept it a secret until Priscilla picked us up from the airport. We spent the rest of the weekend celebrating with Mandi’s Atlanta peeps.