As fortune would have it, Christa and Steven were meant to be. Crazy-cat-lady tendencies and thousands of miles would not keep these two apart—thanks to a last ditch effort at the online dating game and the distraction of a military deployment. Christa gives us all the details on how they met, the sweet simplicity of the proposal, and how she stays sane during wedding planning.
How’d the two of you meet?
I had just turned 25, and decided that this was the year that something had to happen in my dating life. It was that or I was honestly and truly convinced that I would spend the rest of my life semi-alone as a crazy cat lady. I reactivated her online dating account and figured why the heck not. One of the first pictures the website showed me was a picture of man with, of all things, a cat on his shoulders. It had to be fate… Steven had, in the organized complete and utter chaos that is a military deployment, forgotten he even had an online dating account, but when he did occasionally remember, he told himself that he needed to cancel it.
Needless to say he was rather surprised when while in Afghanistan he received a message. He says it was the fact that I knew how to use proper punctuation that won him over. Either way, cats and commas later, this was the beginning of a 8-month long courtship that consisted of hours of texting, minutes of stolen phone calls and no less than three hundred pages of emails. The original plan was for us to meet eventually when Steven returned home to Minnesota, however, patience is a virtue that is still a bit beyond me and one night during an instant message, I offered to fly out to California to help him make the drive back. The back-up plan, should he prove to be an axe-wielding serial killer, was my best friend was also in California, and hey, I was overdue for a vacation. Apparently Fortune really does favor the bold because Steven was everything I never even thought to wish for. He wasn’t an axe murderer and my moment of courage led to a four-day cross country road trip that honestly, was one of the best time of our lives.
Give us the details! When? Where? How?
In May of 2015, I broke my leg and had the joy of spending three weeks off from work doing nothing but pondering my existence (and watching a lot of daytime television). Somewhere during this interesting experience I started asking Steven the incredibly daunting question of where we were going in our relationship. Of course I asked this while he was trying to sleep (I had no sleep schedule with nothing to do but watch TV) and he promptly rolled over and went back to sleep. At first I was worried by his less than enthusiastic response, but later that day (while awake…) he asked me if I wanted to look at what a local jewelry store had. I’m pretty sure my face lit up like a Christmas tree, because if nothing else, Steven doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.
Eventually we decided to design our own ring. We both felt that we wanted to combine elements of things we both liked in different rings and Steven said if he was going to be paying some ridiculous amount of money it was going to be for something that was exactly what we wanted. And then the game began…I knew Steven had started the process of having my ring made, but had no idea when it would be done and the suspense was killing me! He, however, enjoyed every moment of making me squirm and even went so far as to buying me jewelry that he said would “go perfectly with your new ring.”
Eventually, in February of 2016, we made a trip up to Detroit Lakes, MN which had been on of the stops during our road trip home from California in 2012. I had a feeling he was up to something when we went to watch the sunset at the Mississippi headwaters. It was, in my opinion the perfect place for a picturesque proposal (Steven later agreed with me, but may have mentioned that he forgot the ring in the hotel room). He casually remarked “this would be a great place for a proposal,” and went back to the car to get a sandwich. Crestfallen, I’d pretty much given up on the whole thing and probably sulked for the rest of the night. The next morning, I trudged off to take a shower and returned to find our entire room lit up with candles, and Steven standing next to a table which had a ring box. And so, in towel with wet hair, I accepted his casual mention that I was stuck with him as the best proposal I could have never imagined. What can I say—he keeps me on my toes.
What has been your favorite experience planning the wedding?
The warm fuzzies I still get when I remind myself that I get to marry the love of my life. Doesn’t hurt that we’ll be in a tropical location surrounded by those that love and support us fully. How do you stay sane under the pressures of wedding planning? It took me a little while, but I’ve finally come the startling conclusion that the only opinions that matter are mine and Steven’s. There is no definition of a perfect wedding, only what is perfect for us. And wine. Also I have a wedding planner. Best. Investment. Ever.
What is your favorite part of using Joy for your wedding?
This website allows us to appear to be much more put-together than I think we really are! While we’re both tech savvy, neither one of us has the time to pull together a website that would be aesthetically pleasing and up to our standards. This website is both. We’ve gotten tons of compliments already!
What piece of advice would you give couples to ensure that they use Joy to its fullest potential?
This is a great opportunity to tell your story and define what makes the two of you you. We’re trying to share as much as possible to allow our guests the chance to not only get to know us, but other members of our wedding party and those that are special to us.
At Joy we believe that even though a wedding lasts a day, joy should last forever. What does that mean to you?
It means that this is one day out of not only 365, but the rest of our lives. While I mean to enjoy it to the fullest, it is not the only day that may mean the world to us. While I like details, I’m trying to not get caught up in any of the little things that can detract from the point of all of this: I get to marry my best friend and the love of my life. The rest of it just isn’t as important.
