Saturday evening (6/25), I officiated Marny and Justin’s wedding ceremony at Cator Woolford Gardens, in Atlanta, Georgia. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:
It will not surprise you that while couples meeting online were the exception when I started officiating weddings fourteen years ago, today couples NOT meeting online are the exception. And, even within that group, the minority who meet IRL, Marny and Justin stand out. It’s almost like their meeting each other came out of a rom com. Check this out.
Marny says: “I started working at Parkland Golf and Country Club… While out on the golf course, I was… making my rounds when I pulled up to a father and son duo at the first hole. I immediately noticed the son’s bright blue eyes… I had never seen him before in the time I had been working there. After leaving them, I skipped a majority of the course in hopes that I would run into him again, but I didn’t… I didn’t see him again for about 6 months.”
Marny continues: “The day I ran into him again… he was with his dad, his friend, and his friend’s dad. I felt like he remembered me, but he was very shy. Every time I asked if they needed anything, he would refer to his dad and not speak directly to me. I assumed he was either uninterested, taken, or shy. It was coming to the time when I would only see them once more and needed his dad to sign out, when I ran into them again.
Justin finally came over to talk to me to get another drink, and I said I would be running into them again around the corner since I wasn’t supposed to at this spot on the course. When I got around the corner, they had just gotten off the tee and Justin’s friend grabbed way too many clubs off the cart, and I had a feeling Justin was going to come over to talk to me. That’s exactly what happened… he asked for my number and the rest is history.”
Justin picks the story up from here: “The next day I was talking about how I met the most amazing girl and how I thought she was into me.” Now, it seems like bragging aside, he wasn’t totally sure, but he continues, “As I was talking, I got a text from Marny… She WAS interested and wasn’t just being nice the day before. From that point on we were at each other’s side almost every day…”
Justin reflects on the way they met and sees great meaning in it, “It always felt like destiny to me… Meeting her on the golf course I played hundreds of times… Getting her number on the golf hole I considered my home hole. Getting her message, the next day at the exact time I was talking about her. Along the way, I know there were a thousand reasons why she was the one, but the start certainly helped.”
Now, as beautiful as this story is, I think that the most important point is in that final sentence. We have many an encounter in life that feels special, that feels like more than a coincidence. However, it is up to us to act on that feeling. It is up to us to seize what could be just fate and turn it into destiny.
And though that’s the part they don’t usually show in rom coms, that’s the real stuff relationships are made of. The six years after that chance encounter are what really made Marny and Justin who they are as a couple.
That quotidian hard work of two becoming one is what gives that chance encounter its real meaning. THAT is what makes it so special. We should all be so lucky.