After celebrating our wedding in March, I thought now would be the best time to put down in words Daniel and I’s love story!
The story itself is so clichéd that it almost becomes original, because it so rare to have achieved what we have in this day and age. What I am referring to, of course, is that we were childhood sweethearts.
Our story begins a long time before either of us even began dating. It begins on a warm September night in 1998. Little 8 year old Yvette, unaware she would meet her future husband on this night, was attending a youth group ‘bring a friend’ sleep over. However there was another important attendee named Daniel. I do not remember him or an inordinate amount from this night, my memories consist of climbing on chairs and general roughhousing that comes with being 8 years old. However due to the structure of the night, it would have been inevitable that we would have come in contact, as it was a night filled with group activities. It wasn’t till many years into our relationship that we realised we were at the same youth group event!
Although Daniel and I had never been close
friends, we did share the same friendship circle, so he was very much in my
life. He was close friends with my friend Ashlee, because they lived in the
same suburb. In grade 9, I would go over to her house in the afternoon and send
out the text asking who wants to meet up and Daniel would often turn up and
another boy who I had eyes for at the time. After that, Daniel and I spent many
afternoons on instant messenger and Myspace ( I am showing my age now). It was
during this time that my school realised that they had been suppressing my
genius by having me in the general class, so they moved me into the gifted class,
with Daniel. We became very close during this time, helping each other out with
our relationship troubles and spending pretty much every night chatting from
3:30 pm till 11pm or later, being the rebels we were. The conversations never
died and the batter never grew weary, but all this time we were best friends
and nothing more.
Grade 10 was the best year of my life. I
was finally in a class with sophisticated people who didn’t think it was fun to
make the teacher cry, and I finally had friends in my class, including my best
friend in the world, Daniel. I was finally being challenged by the workload I
was given, and I had a great group of friends, all of which I am still in
contact with to this day. However, many people did not believe a guy and a girl
could just be good friends, in hindsight, they were right. Daniel and I were often
teased, all in good fun, about dating or being married etc. We would always
reply with something hilarious and quick witted. It was just a great time in my
life.
With year 10 coming to a close, our formal was coming up. Not wanting to go alone, Daniel asked me to be his date, as friends. I accepted, as it made sense to do so at the time. This was until several weeks later on the 22nd of November, when we were chatting on instant messenger like we did every afternoon. I was also multitasking and talking to my friend, Sally, on the phone at the time. Daniel was acting off this afternoon. I could always tell within the first few words of the conversation if something was wrong. So I kept asking him to tell me what was wrong. Eventually he caved and said the exact words “ I think I am falling for you”. This came as a BIG surprise to say the least. For half of our relationship, I had tried to convince him he was gay so I could have a gay friend. I did not think of fancying him myself! I was utterly lost for words and began wheezing into the phone to Sally. I took about 10 minutes to regain composure and then I had deep conversation with Sally about what he had said. I returned to the chat conversation now where Daniel was completely freaking out because I had just left him hanging for 20 minutes. We then discussed the situation maturely, way too mature for any normal 15 year olds. I asked him if he was serious and if we were going to date it would have to be a serious relationship. I didn’t want to just mess around and ruin our friendship, and he agreed. We continued to chat until midnight and things carried on as usual.
The next day at school, I was sitting in our geography class waiting for him to get to school. It was nerve wrecking; I don’t know what I was so nervous about. He walked in and smiled and sat next to me like usual. It was like it was our little secret. We had decided to tell all our friends at a party that was happening on the weekend. We chose that party because it fell on the 24th and 24 is my favourite number. So we had to keep it to ourselves for 3 whole days! However, looking back, it gave us time to process and be comfortable with everything before we brought all our friends into our little world.
Saturday the 24th of November 2007 came around,, and in fitting form, it was the party of the boy who I had previously like but had rejected me. What a way to tell him that you are over him!! We turned up at his place and waited until about half way through the party beforeI went over to my girl friends and bluntly said, “Daniel and I are dating”. I look over at Daniel who was doing the same with the boys; they were holding both his arms up cheering that we had finally gotten together. Everyone was thrilled for us and very supportive, with the exception of the birthday boy. So after 10 years of our lives constantly weaving in and out of each other’s, we had finally found each other at the right time and the right place. That is what I like to believe as fate.
Our relationship was like a fairy-tale from the very beginning. Daniel told me he loved me not long after we began dating. Our first kiss was on a big rock overlooking the river, where we were able to recreate arguably the most romantic kiss in cinematic history when it began raining. Our first year of dating was fairly simple, our biggest fights were that we didn’t get to spend enough time together. The first 6 months flew by. On our 6 month anniversary, Daniel gave me a ring and a letter. He told me that it was a promise ring, and with ithe promised he would propose to me when the time was right. We kept this to ourselves mostly. We knew what people would say about 16 year olds and promise rings.
Our second year was more of a struggle, as it is with most couples. However ours was made so much worse by the impending doom of the HSC (AP if you are an American and A levels if you are English). The stress of your entire future crammed into one year of work is a lot of pressure, which can make or break it for a lot of couples. During this year, Daniel was nothing but supportive, he would help me with maths and economics and I would help proof read his essays. Sure we both had our share of melt downs because the pressure got too much, or the assignment you poured your heart and soul into only go 70%, but we always had each other.. In the end, all our hard work paid off, and we both got into our desired courses, Daniel Pharmaceutical Science and I Commerce and Event Management, at University..
The first year of university was our 3rd
year of dating, and definitely the hardest of our relationship. We both went to
University full time whilst juggling part time jobs. Daniel did night fill at a
supermarket and I worked as a waitress and then in retail. We were lucky to get
a night to ourselves, let alone a full day. Gone were the days of spending all
our time together watching movies and eating junk food. I used to wait up for
Daniel to get home from work, roughly at 1 am, and if we did get a day off it
would be spent studying. However,
although this year was terrible, one amazing thing did happen. This was the
year Daniel proposed.
It was September 24th; it was starting to become our number. . I was told to dress up because Daniel had been chosen to do a speech in front of all the board of directors of his University. Due to the location of his University, my friend Sally was going to drive me there because she went to the same University. We got all dressed up and right before we left a Limousine pulled up out the front of our house. Excitedly, we got in the limo, surprisingly to find a CD playing which explained that we weren’t going to Daniel’s University but instead telling me to sit back, relax and have fun. The off we went! The limo first pulled into a park that we would previously hang out at, and there was a rose and a short book titled ‘Chapter 1 of our Love Story’. As I read Chapter 1, the limo took me down to the rock overlooking the ocean where our first kiss in the rain, and again there was a rose and a short book, this one titled ‘Chapter 2’. This adventure continued for 8 more chapters, including visiting the high school where we had become sweethearts and (ADD ONE MORE THING HERE), until we arrived at a beautiful beach. On the boulevard, I could see Daniel, dressed in a suit, holding the final rose, surrounded by a ring of fairy lights. I was filled with butterflies as I walked down to him. When I reached him, Daniel got down on one knee and proposed. I wish I could tell you what he said, but I was so filled with emotions that I can hardly remember. Speechless, he walked me back to the car, where we continued our adventure. got in the car When we arrived at our destination, which was Daniel’s home, we were greeted with all our friends, who, with the help of Daniel, had organised a surprise engagement party filled with fairy lights, all my favourite foods, and gifts. In case my words are not doing the story justice, watch the video of the proposal below!
After this magical night, we told both our parents, who were supportive as long as we finished our degrees and got jobs before we were married.
The following two years of our relationship were filled with work, University and wedding planning. Daniel and all the bridesmaids were fantastic at helping plan. There was just so much to do that it consumed all our time and as previously mentioned, we did not have much to spare. We just wanted to BE married, which was good because at least we knew we weren’t one of the couples that just wanted a wedding and not a marriage.
Finally we graduated and both applied and were successfully accepted into full time jobs, and then it was time to get married. When the wedding day rolled around, I was relatively calm. We just really happy for our married lives to begin. The night before the wedding, none of the bridemaids and I slept because we were so excited. When the morning arrived, the bridesmaids and I got up had our breakfast and headed to the hair dresser, with time for a Beyoncé dacne party in the car. Then it was back home to get our makeup done and get dressed. Everything ran perfectly. The flowers even arrived on time, despite my irrational fear of florists.
Then the most cliché thing happened. The one thing I had no control over. We were delayed about 20 minutes, of a 40 minute ceremony, when the wedding car broke down on our journey to the church. All I could think in the car was that poor Daniel would think I was standing him up!
Regardless, the car began working and we
got there in good form. Although, if you ask my Dad, I was trying to run down
the isle, but I maintain I was trying to save time. The ceremony was incredible,
we got our lines right, which Daniel was nervous about, and were pronounced
husband and wife with huge smiles on both our faces! We then had our reception
in a castle, well the best castle you can find in Australia. I loved the venue, it is stunning. The food was
delicious, the dancing was great, and everyone got into it. One thing that made
our wedding unique was all the speeches, we had 9 in total. They were all funny
and sweet, and nothing inappropriate. One of the best speeches wasn’t even a
speech at all, it was a video two of the bridesmaids had made for us. It was a
video of us hanging out and having the best time, a perfect visual of our
wonderful years together. The night was a dream, and it was the perfect fairy-tale
wedding for our fairy-tale love story.
The next day we left for our honeymoon to the USA, more specifically to Vegas, LA and San Francisco. This was the first time Daniel and I had ever been on a holiday by ourselves together. The trip got off to a rocky start when we had 7 hour delay at LAX, which made our travel time extend to over 32 hours or something crazy. But we eventually got to Vegas, where we stayed at Caesars Palace, which we appreciated after that ridiculously long journey. Our Vegas leg of the trip consisted of shopping, firing guns, flying to the Grand Canyon, and shopping. It was amazing, and it was our favourite part of our holiday. LA was great, of course we went to Disneyland, and we also loved the Grove and Santa Monica pier. Finally we travelled to San Francisco, where although we didn’t have the best weather, the city was just amazing. We visited Alcatraz, a mix of creepy and fascinating, and also saw the palace of fine arts. We had an amazing time and had no dramas.
My favourite part Daniels favourite part
Although we are only 1 month into our marriage, it has been a breeze. We have had no fights or dramas, which I can only attribute to being engaged for so long. We would often talk about what it would be like to be married and how we would do everything, so now we are just doing what we said we would. I am so in love Daniel and so happy we got married. I can honestly say I still get jittery and excited to get home and see him, and am excited for what the future holds for the rest of our fairy-tale love story.
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