Jeff and I met in 2002 when he moved in next door to me in college.

To say that my roommate and I weren’t all like, “Heyyyyy hot new neighbor boy!” would be an understatement.

A dark complected, fit, overly nice, sweet talking, SINLGE guy? What more could you ask for in a neighbor.

Problem was? I was already in a committed relationship to a man I had planned to marry.

Yep. True story.

So the night that “hot new neighbor boy” knocked on our door with his shirt off to borrow peanut butter I tried to convince my roommate she should date him.

Except somehow, in the short 3 minutes he stood in our doorway while my roommate grabbed the JIF, I was intrigued by him.

Eventually {days later}, I learned that he was a finance major. Fitting, because I had a finance class that I desperately needed help with.

A few weeks went by, and feeling like he owed us a favor after the peanut butter borrow, I asked him if he would be willing to teach me how to use my financial calculator. Some would say the rest is history, but unfortunately it wasn’t that simple.

Recall I mentioned I already had a boyfriend? Yea, issue numero uno.

But there was something that kept pulling me towards the neighbor boy. I can’t say it was something I was hearing from God because at the time I wasn’t a follower of Jesus and “to hear from God” would have been something I wasn’t familiar with.

But, looking back, I find it no accident that Jeff Rose moved in to apartment B-2.

Our relationship started off rocky. I was still leading on my “ex” while hot neighbor boy continued to be a “playboy” so to speak. We cheated. We lied. We did things that {looking back} neither one of us are proud of. But there was something that could never pull us apart.

The connection I felt with him was like nothing I had felt EVER before with anyone. And you know that silly little saying,

“When you know…you know.”

Well, I knew.

We spent the better half of our relationship trying to gain the others trust back. Truly, when you cheat and lie…it’s so hard to come out of that. In fact, there were times that we both gave up.

It never lasted long.

Then in 2004, and after dating for just over a year, we were no longer neighbors and instead? We became roommates. We moved in together in a 4 bedroom house with 3 of his guy friends. Whoa, buddy. 

Nothing like moving the girlfriend in to the bachelor pad. 

Literally 3 months after we started living together we found out that he was being deployed {he was in the Army National Guard} to Iraq. And so we did what any young lovers would do…we got engaged.

On Halloween. Dressed as Dorothy and the Tin Man.  Ahem.

We had planned to get engaged already, but with the deployment on the horizon we he decided to push it up. The next logical step was to be married and, being the fact that he was leaving for another country within a month, we decided to elope!

That is correct.

I’m really not the type….to get married in Vegas.

Except I did.

To be completely honest with you, one of the main reasons we decided to get married prior to his deployment is so that I could have access to information about him while he was gone. It’s much easier to be included if you are a “wife” rather than just a girlfriend or fiance. That’s not to say we didn’t love each other…we did. But, the deployment definitely expedited our marriage.

We actually already had our trip booked to Las Vegas with my parents to visit his mom {who lives there} and we weren’t exactly sure if we were going to get married there or not.

Who does that? Plans a trip and says,

“Hey we may or may not get married on this trip.”

It was important for me that my parents were on board with it. And, to say that that was an easy conversation….would be a big fat lie. EEEEKK!

I’m an only child and definitely a daddy’s girl. I was not about to do anything that my parents did not bless.

Three days into our Vegas vacation, as we were sitting at In-N-Out Burger {go figure} we brought up the idea to my parents. They knew our history and the long road we had to finally becoming a couple. But I remember very clearly something that my dad said that day.

He said, “I don’t want to be the reason you DON’T get married. I want you to do what is going to make you happy.”

Not the response I expected from him. In fact, I thought he’d be on the next flight back to IL after he finished his Double Double.

That’s all I needed to hear. That’s all WE needed….and it was such a huge relief to have him leave the decision in our hands. I guess all those years of good grades made him trust me a little. Finally. Ha!

Not more than 24 hours later we were off to get our marriage license.

We originally booked our wedding at The Little White Chapel. Yes, the same Little White Chapel that Britney Spears got married at when she made that awful decision years ago.

The more I thought about…the more I just couldn’t do it. Not get married. I wanted to get married.

But I couldn’t get married at The Little White Chapel. It was too fake for me. I needed something more intimate and less baby-blue-tuxedo-ish. You know? 

So we forfeited our deposit and decided to get married at the Stratosphere hotel. A much more classy option. As classy as you can get when you elope in Vegas on 2 days notice.

Our ceremony was 7 minutes. SEVEN. And I wore jeans {and what looks like a lingerie top}.

That’s it. It was me, Jeff, my mom & dad, and his mom and step-dad. Oh, and our Reverend who just so happened to be from Illinois {strange}.

I was honestly so nervous that I drank a vodka/cranberry before we went up to the chapel. And if you know me, you know I don’t do alcohol.

Thoughts that went through my head…

Was I giving up my idea of a perfect wedding with the white dress, 12 bridesmaids, gorgeous flowers, and wonderful guests? Was this the right decision? What would our friends back home say? How will we be married and live in a house with 3 other guys?

If I would have truly known how hard the first year would have been…I may have opted out.

As you can see, we had no perfect start. No extravagant wedding. No wedding dress.

But what we did have was the desire to make our marriage work and so far, we are holding true to that promise we made each other that day in the Chapel in the Clouds.