When we are young and dreaming of love and the lives we will lead, we make plans in anticipation of "the perfect love story." We don't know of anyone whose dreams came out exactly as they had planned. It is our experience that reality was harder - and better - than we could have ever imagined.
When Matt was 21, a recently returned missionary, he had aspirations of getting married within a year or two and dating his future wife for at least 6 months before getting engaged. He felt impressed to move from Boise to Salt Lake City and attend the University of Utah as part of this endeavor, thus pursuing a medical degree and broadening his prospects for marriage. Soon Matt found out that getting married within a year or two was not in his cards. Matt met several girls, and even dated many of them. Most never progressed further than a 3rd date. Pretty soon Matt was 30 and had dated a lot. He wondered if he would ever find the girl of his dreams; after all, his list was quite extensive.
When Lindsay was in her teens, she had her life planned out to a T. She would graduate from high school, attend Utah State University for two years until she was old enough to serve a mission, then come back and marry the man of her dreams. After finishing her degree in teaching, she would never actually become a teacher, but use those good skills to be an awesome stay-at-home mom. However, by the time Lindsay was 25, she had graduated from college and was in her first year of teaching kindergarten. She had dated a fair amount. She planned to date her future husband for at least a year before getting engaged. She had been on 3 dates with 3 different guys in the 3 days prior to the night she met Matt.
On 28 April 2011, the Ensign Ward was having a BBQ as one last chance to get together before the singles wards and stakes were completely reorganized. Matt found out about the BBQ through the 2nd counselor in the bishopric, Kent Buie, whom he ski patrolled with. Matt was technically not in the Ensign Ward. Lindsay was sitting at a table next to the food, excitedly telling her roommate and her roommate's friend about the date she had been on the night before. When Matt walked in, he gathered a plate full of food, turned around, and decided to sit down at the table full of girls at which Lindsay was sitting. At first, all of the girls were involved in their own conversations and didn't talk to him. When Lindsay's friends left, she finally turned to Matt as it dawned on her that he was not talking with the other girls at the table, and said, "Hi! Sorry, I thought you were with them." Matt responded that he didn't really know anyone but Kent Buie. We chatted for a bit, and Lindsay was interested that Matt was outdoorsy and from Boise. Matt finished his plate and excused himself to talk to Kent. Lindsay kept her eye on him a bit as he wandered around the room. Matt asked Kent which of the girls would be good for him to date. Kent pointed to a number of girls and one of the girls he recommended was Lindsay. Lindsay went on yet another date with yet another young man that evening.
The next day was the big multi-stake conference for the reorganization of all of the singles wards in the Salt Lake Valley. Lindsay rode her bike up to the Institute alone and walked into the huge congregation searching for someone to sit by. She saw a few friends but no empty seats. She was about to sit down next to a boy she didn't know when she saw Matt on the next row back with an empty chair to his left and two girls to his right. She asked if the seat was taken and Matt said no. During the meeting, we shared Matt's phone to sing hymns and got pretty close, but it felt natural. Later on, Lindsay leaned forward and Matt stretched his arm out on her chair. When she sat back up, he started to move it out of courtesy, but she told him he didn't have to move it. Lindsay felt so surprisingly comfortable next to Matt, and a feeling started to form in the pit of her stomach that she needed to invite him over to have dinner. The more she thought about it, the more worried she became that she would be imposing on her roommate, so she put it out of her mind.
When the meeting was over, Matt asked if Lindsay wanted to go with him to find their maps of their new wards. She did, and again, felt so natural with him, as if we had been friends for years. Lindsay asked about the other girls that Matt was sitting with, and he said, "They're my neighbors and we walked up together," but Matt wanted to spend as much time as he could with Lindsay, and said good-bye to his friends. That was when Lindsay felt almost impulsively, the words coming out, inviting Matt over for dinner. He readily accepted.
Dinner was leftovers from Sugarhouse BBQ the previous night. Lindsay was happy that having Matt over didn't impose on her roommate after all because she had gone home to have dinner with her family. We enjoyed talking and getting to know each other better. We watched a CES Fireside on Lindsay's laptop, and then continued to talk about many of the things we had in common. We were both from Idaho; had both been to and loved Germany (Lindsay pulled out her photo albums from her high school graduation trip to Europe); both love the the outdoors; and so Matt asked Lindsay if she would like to go hiking or biking that coming Friday. She accepted happily.
Monday after work, Lindsay was feeling bold and texted Matt, "I'm going to go for a bike ride, easy pace, I'm tired, but need to get out. Do you want to join me?" Matt said he would have to get his bike out of storage, but would love to. He picked Lindsay up in his vintage sea foam green 1969 F-100. It smelled like her Grandpa Ernie's farm and she fell in love with it instantly. We rode the Legacy Parkway bike path for a bit, but because of the large amount of gnats flying in our faces as the evening came on, we didn't go far. Matt invited Lindsay over for bratwurst and potato salad.
Tuesday we texted. Wednesday, Matt called to see if Lindsay wanted to go out that night, but she had a date which was planned before she even met Matt.
Thursday, Matt joined Lindsay in a chapter meeting of Fight the New Drug and he did something which was very out of the ordinary for this anti-PDA boy... he held Lindsay's hand! After the meeting, we watched the sun set on the top of the parking garage at Primary Children's Medical Center. Lindsay thought that Matt was planning to kiss her there, and he did think about it, but was scared to act on the feeling. We went to Matt's apartment and watched Burn Notice. At the end of the evening we had our last first kiss!
Friday, we went to the Drive-In with Matt's good friends Kyle and Tammy Speechly and their new baby Skye. We saw Rango and Thor.
Saturday, Lindsay attended the UCAP (Utah Coalition Against Pornography) conference with her good friend, Michelle. Afterward, Lindsay went to Matt's to hang out and share all of the amazing things she learned. We talked about several deep topics that deepened our relationship and made us both feel more serious and committed to each other.
The next two weeks are pretty much a blur to the both of us, but we know that we spent every moment we could together, learning about each other and looking for any red flags. At some point, we began talking about marriage. Neither one of us had any doubts, so we continued to move forward.
One night during that two week blur, while talking on Matt's lovesac, he popped the question. Lindsay's response was, "Yes," over and over again. Lindsay was all for a summer wedding; Matt wanted a winter wedding. We both felt like that the upcoming summer would be too soon to plan adequately and for our families to adjust to the news. Lindsay didn't want to get married in the middle of the school year, and Matt didn't want to wait until the following summer. Ultimately we decided that if we both knew that we should get married, it didn't matter when it happened, and waiting wasn't going to make us any more sure of our decision. We both fasted and prayed and attended the Temple individually, and both came to the conclusion that we should get married that summer! We began making plans to tell our families and find a ring.
We went ring shopping 3 weeks to the day after we met. Remember, we were the people who were going to wait 6 months to a year at until engagement! Yet, we were both completely calm and confident in our actions. Things were just coming together perfectly.
Matt met Lindsay's family over Memorial Day weekend and fit in great with them. As it turns out, Matt and Lindsay's cousin, Jeremy, were in the MTC together back in 2000. We even have several pictures to prove it! Matt also totally scored points with Grandma Arlene when he made a smart remark to Grandpa Ernie.
Lindsay got to meet Matt's mom, Darlene, after Matt and Darlene returned from San Francisco for a cousin's wedding. Lindsay instantly loved Darlene. Later that summer Lindsay would get to meet Ron (Matt's dad), Dylan (Matt's brother), Sarah (Dylan's wife) and Claire (Dylan and Sarah's daughter) and love every one of them instantly as well.
Matt proposed officially on 11 June 2011. We started out with a visit to Kennecott Copper Mine and the Museum there. We then drove around the Daybreak Community looking for places we could potentially live. In the late afternoon, we grew hungry, so we stopped to have a nice picnic at the docks on Oquirrh Lake. When we got back to Matt's car, he opened the door for Lindsay and picked up the ring box. Lindsay was so surprised! Matt had picked the perfect ring.
The next 2 months and 2 days were spent busily preparing for our wedding 13 August 2011 in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Everything came together perfectly with impeccable timing and with very little stress to culminate in a wedding day better than we ever could have imagined.
