Bradford - the groom-to-be.
Laura Soo - the bride-to-be.
Eric - Housemate of the bride and groom-to-be, and BFOTG.
Ryan - Other housemate of the bride and groom-to-be.
Various coworkers - greek chorus.
About a year and a half ago, in a sheer act of desperation, I reached out through the internet to find love. Or, not so much love, and more an additional thief for our weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. Eric was responsible for playing the thief at the time, but he kept running off to New York every weekend to visit his girlfriend; meanwhile, the rest of us were springing traps on ourselves.
I thought a good way to resolve this problem, along with my singleness, would be to reach out through the web and try to find geeky girls who enjoyed D&D and didn't sound like complete and utter freaks. I came across a grand total of ONE girl who fit that description, and so I sent her the following message:
"Dear God, our party needs a thief. Like, whoa. The current one keeps skipping off to New York every weekend to visit his girlfriend. I mean, like, how lame is that.
Well... possibly as lame as using OK Cupid to recruit people into a HackMaster game, I suppose.
(You also get bonus points for majoring in chemistry, since that's what I majored in during college. But that's neither here nor there).
:)"
She responded politely, told me that I had an interesting profile, and that I listened to good music. She also said she was working at a coffeeshop near her school, and she had about zero time for anything resembling a D&D game. So we chatted a few times after that, and it probably would have resulted in maybe a couple of dates and nothing more, if I didn't (coincidentally -- not in some creepy stalkerish sorta way) move into a house a block away from that coffeeshop a few weeks later.
I first met Laura Soo in person on March 16th, after conclusively establishing that the coffee shop at which she worked was the orange and purple monstrosity I passed by on my way home from the metro every day. I came in after class, hung out, ate carrot cake, and drank cappucino. The next day, I asked if she wanted to go to IKEA with me and help me purchase furniture for my new room. I got so nervous driving home that I nearly ran a stop sign. "This cannot bode well," I thought. We go out to a movie later that night (in a group of people -- not just by ourselves, at least), and her ex shows up at the train station and decides to join us. Again with the thoughts of "this does not bode well."
Fifteen months later, I buy her an engagement ring. So much for the not-boding-well.
Anyway, the purpose of this blog is not to go through all of the mushy stuff that ends up at the knot dot com. There'll be posts about the proposal and the ceremony and the reception, and choosing a date and all of that, but mostly this is going to be about planning the wedding and renting tuxedos and HOLY GOD WHY DO PHOTOGRAPHS COST SO MUCH and the like. If Laura Soo and I end up getting a wedding planner, I'm sure there'll be some long screeds here about how I want to slit his/her throat, and I'm also sure that said long-screeds will result in me being tried for assault and/or battery.
Either that, or it'll languish here with this one post on it.
