How did you meet your fiance?

[yuna628 9,528]

You guys are the best, all these lovely stories are making me teary!

Please keep them coming!

On another note I fly to the US tomorrow to spend christmas out there so please keep me in your thoughts for a successful POE!

Good luck Pheebs! If I could do the same I would. Hoping that it all goes smoothly and that you have a wonderful time!

[Pheebs1201 269]

Pheebs, good luck! My fiancé will be flying in for a 10 day visit on Boxing Day. Will you update on your Poe experience in the yes you can visit thread? Hoping that his 12 passport stamps here will save him from some scrutiny. I'll probably just fly to London after this one until he's approved just to avoid the potential for issues.

Have a good flight and I hope everything goes well at POE and you can enjoy Christmas here

Good luck Pheebs! If I could do the same I would. Hoping that it all goes smoothly and that you have a wonderful time!

Thanks guys!! I will definitely post what happens on "Yes, you can visit!" once I have arrived! We are actually travelling together as Dan is currently here with me in England so I am hoping that will make things smoother although obviously we will be in different lines at immigration. Plane leaves in four hours- I will report back later!

[berber_wife 90]

Met my now husband when I was doing a semester study abroad in Cork, Ireland. It was the night before my birthday and I was out at a nightclub with a friend. I was very drunk, getting my dance moves on. He came up behind me and started dancing with me. Make-out session followed.

slangofoil, I looked at your profile and we did study abroad in Cork at the same time! Where did you live? I lived in the apartments opposite St. Fin Barre's. Did you do Early Start? I think I was in the "Northern Ireland" course. Don't really remember though. I was more concerned with traveling (and drinking!) than studying. Still keep in touch with the professor though. I guess he forgave me for being a bad student since I was a good drinking partner.

What was your local drink - Murphy's or Beamish? I was partial to Murphy's.

I was back in 2006 and 2011 but haven't been back since. I miss it. I need to take my husband and show him my old stomping grounds. He's never been to Ireland.

And was the nightclub in question An Brog by any chance? That was where all my drunken make-out sessions happened. None led to true love (obviously) but good times were had by all.

OK, I'll shut up about Cork now.

As to how I met my husband, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland. After my two years of service were up, I decided to take my readjustment allowance (which was supposed to be used for responsible adult things like down payment on a car or first few months rent of a new apartment) and blow it on a six-month trip around Africa and Europe. When I was in Marrakech, I was approached by a tour guide. I was on a tight schedule so I declined. He invited me to get a drink. He had such a nice smile, I agreed. We talked about our mutual love of travel, of Europe (where he had been), of the US (where he had a visa to but hadn't been) and of Moroccan food. I had hated the Southern African food (no flavor) so I was in heaven in Morocco. He offered to teach me to cook tagine. We hung out that weekend (and did cook tagine) but I wanted to go to the seashore. I had just spent two years in a landlocked country and was dying to see the ocean again. So off I went but he called me a few days later and said he was dropping off some tourists there and if he could see me again. We ended up spending a few days then too. Then I went off to Europe and figured it had been a fun time but I'd never see him again.

We kept in touch through FB and skype and he had been planning to visit some friends in Europe in December. I was still in Europe then so we planned to meet up again. That led to us spending a few weeks traveling in Germany and Poland and we liked each other so much that we decided to try the long-distance thing. I was able to squeeze in a trip back to Morocco to meet his family and see his hometown before heading back to the US.

Later that year, he visited on his tourist visa. He was able to stay quite a while and met most of my family and friends. At that point we started talking marriage seriously but I had commitment issues. We had only been together for a little over a year and I had always believed that you should date for some years before marriage. I also didn't have a good enough job to sponsor him yet. So we started talking about me moving to Morocco instead.

But before we could make any plans, I was diagnosed with breast cancer (even though I was only 28)! He hopped the first plane he could to the US. I could go on for pages about how he proved to be the most supportive partner I could hope for in a crisis. At first we were going to get married and do a CR-1 visa, with him staying with me for treatment then waiting out the visa back in Morocco. At the time I had no idea how long and taxing treatment would be. I thought it would be a few months and it's now been a year and I'm not done until July. Then (can you believe this) my mom was also diagnosed with breast cancer.

So we decided to pursue adjustment of status. We were married in March in a small but lovely backyard wedding and reception. We filed in June and everything went perfectly. He received his green card in early November. My mom and I are both doing well and my husband and I are all the stronger because of this ordeal.

[mrszorak44 7]

Aww I think this is such a nice post with all the problematic questions with our K1 / AOS dilemmas, this is so refreshing to hear how people met and fell in love, for some the other way around, fell in love and then met lol

I met my ex-fiance (lol) now husband on a Blackberry Support forum. I was having a problem with my Blackberry and posted a question on how to solve the issue, then he was the first who answered my question and it solved my problem Since then we talked all the time and started caring for each other... then we decided to meet in person... and now here we are 4 months married and loving it! All possible because of God, all glory to Him!

[slangofoil 50]

slangofoil, I looked at your profile and we did study abroad in Cork at the same time! Where did you live? I lived in the apartments opposite St. Fin Barre's. Did you do Early Start? I think I was in the "Northern Ireland" course. Don't really remember though. I was more concerned with traveling (and drinking!) than studying. Still keep in touch with the professor though. I guess he forgave me for being a bad student since I was a good drinking partner.

What was your local drink - Murphy's or Beamish? I was partial to Murphy's.

I was back in 2006 and 2011 but haven't been back since. I miss it. I need to take my husband and show him my old stomping grounds. He's never been to Ireland.

And was the nightclub in question An Brog by any chance? That was where all my drunken make-out sessions happened. None led to true love (obviously) but good times were had by all.

OK, I'll shut up about Cork now.

....

So we decided to pursue adjustment of status. We were married in March in a small but lovely backyard wedding and reception. We filed in June and everything went perfectly. He received his green card in early November. My mom and I are both doing well and my husband and I are all the stronger because of this ordeal.

Hi berber_wife! I lived in Brookfield, which was a pain for being so far out of the city centre! And yes, I did early start! Can't really remember what we studied, but we did a trip to the Aran Islands, and there was a trip to Northern Ireland that I wasn't able to make due to an exam. I've still never been to the North.

I preferred Murphys at the time of my study abroad, but when I went back for my masters John finally revealed that Irish girls don't really drink stout, and it was ok if I didn't, haha. I mostly drank it the first time around because it was cheap. Now I love the Bulmers whenever we go back.

We met in Club One, which is actually no more. It's a music venue called Crane Lane now. That was the only time I ever went to that club, and we went there because it was ladies free in before 10, heh. Speaking of the Brog, I dunno if I was ever there during my study abroad, but after my masters both John and I worked at the two clubs upstairs (Gorby's and G2).

You have a great story with your husband! Glad to hear you and your mom are doing much better now! Feel free to PM me.

[Pennycat 880]

We're not engaged yet but I just have to share

I had a big block of time already scheduled off of work (that I had to take) for early July 2013. I didn't really have serious plans-- I thought I’d visit my friend and her husband and kid who live at the beach for at least part of it. However, she had to cancel (8 months pregnant and with an active toddler in July left her with zero energy for a houseguest), and so I figured "what the heck, I'll go adventuring".

So, I went onto Kayak and started searching for any city/country I could think of. I could have wound up anywhere--Scotland, Turkey, Chile, Sweden South Africa,..... Costa Rica was the cheapest flight so I took it. I booked a first night in a hostel near the airport, packed a backpack and winged it from there. I just sort of went where the wind and recommendations from fellow travelers took me.

Eventually, on a zipline tour in the cloud forest, I asked for recommendations for a beach town on the Pacific coast but not a resort town, not a big American college party drinkfest kind of town, just a chill place where I could take a surf class and that had some nightlife (many of the rainforest/volcano towns everything closed by 9). They suggested Montezuma and so that's where I went. "They" was an American couple on their honeymoon. I have a picture of the wife from the zipline tour. We'd like to find them and thank them someday

My first night in Montezuma, I went to salsa night at the (one) bar in town because I have taken ballroom dance classes before and love dancing. Because I was so used to everything closing so early in Costa Rica, I was at the bar WAY early--only 3 couples were there. One woman noticed me watching them dance and came over to introduce herself. She and I hit it off talking about dancing. Eventually, this guy who worked for her (she owned a store) came to the bar for an after-work beer. I didn't see him at first but when I did I immediately thought "WHO is THAT". Lucky for me, he’s the guy who worked at her store. And even luckier for me, he was a really cool, nice, genuine guy. We all hung out that night and made plans together (and with a group of British guys who kind of joined us) to take a hike to a nearby waterfall the next day.

Turns out, it was a really rough hike (most of it walking IN the river on really moss/slime covered slippery rocks) and I was not wearing proper footwear and this poor guy wound up with me in the back of the pack, practically carrying me, me arguing with him over the safety and slipperiness of each rock along the way and asking to turn around every 10 minutes. Not my proudest collection of moments, and I was dead convinced that if I’d ever had a shot with this guy, I’d totally blown it embarrassing myself like that (however, he claims that I was hilarious and good-natured about the whole thing even though I was clearly out of my element). I thanked him for his help, apologized for the stress and offered to buy him a beer when we got back to town. That one beer turned into an hours-long, all night conversation and watching the sunrise on the beach together.

We stayed in touch, mostly over Facebook and Skype and slowly bit by bit became more “serious” about this. I’ve visited several times (again, each time more and more serious) and we’re working on getting him permission to visit here before taking any big next step. Stay tuned, I guess!

Edited December 9, 2014 by CatherineA

[N-o-l-a 7,167]

We met on Interpals, a penpal site. Neither of us was looking for a relationship or anything of the sort and I just sent him a quick message because I saw we practiced the same rare religion. We started talking on Skype right away and I knew that from the very first moment we saw each other on Skype that that was going to be it. We arranged to meet each other I think 6 weeks later and it was just fantastic.

That was 3 years ago and now we've been married for 2 years and couldn't be happier.

[1stLoveRedo 111]

CatherineA, keep us posted

Nice story

[berber_wife 90]

Hi berber_wife! I lived in Brookfield, which was a pain for being so far out of the city centre! And yes, I did early start! Can't really remember what we studied, but we did a trip to the Aran Islands, and there was a trip to Northern Ireland that I wasn't able to make due to an exam. I've still never been to the North.

I preferred Murphys at the time of my study abroad, but when I went back for my masters John finally revealed that Irish girls don't really drink stout, and it was ok if I didn't, haha. I mostly drank it the first time around because it was cheap. Now I love the Bulmers whenever we go back.

We met in Club One, which is actually no more. It's a music venue called Crane Lane now. That was the only time I ever went to that club, and we went there because it was ladies free in before 10, heh. Speaking of the Brog, I dunno if I was ever there during my study abroad, but after my masters both John and I worked at the two clubs upstairs (Gorby's and G2).

You have a great story with your husband! Glad to hear you and your mom are doing much better now! Feel free to PM me.

At least with Brookfield you were close to campus. I think I had some housemates who did your early start. Did it have something to do with maybe folklore? Or music? I remember them going on the Aran Islands trip. Our group went to Dublin and were supposed to go to Belfast but that trip was called off on account of some sort of political conflict. I went later with housemates though and also saw the Giant's Causeway.

I initially drank Murphys to be "authentic" but found that I actually preferred dark beer. So I've been a stout gal since 2005. Although I've pretty much given up all drinking now due to treatment. I think my last beer was in August. Anyway, I noticed as time went on that all the Irish were drinking Bud Light and Corona! But by then I was a convert. Jameson too, yum. OK, I need to stop doing this to myself.

Crazy that you worked by the Brog! It was always our last stop after hitting up the Old Oak, An Bodhran and some other places whose names I can't remember. My favorite pub was An Spailpin Fanac. I was such an American expat cliche.

I have old pictures from that semester. If you are interested I could email them...see if you recognize anyone. Gosh, I was skinny back then.

[Pheebs1201 269]

Thanks so much to everyone who is sharing their lovely stories! Such a nice break from all the struggles we see on VJ!

[slangofoil 50]

I have old pictures from that semester. If you are interested I could email them...see if you recognize anyone. Gosh, I was skinny back then.

PM'd you!

[Tina and Johan 206]

I love these threads. We met when I was researching my trip to Europe. I found a penpal site (interpals.net) and saw him. Being a dorky English teacher, he reminded me of the ghost of Christmas present (reddish hair, a beard, jovial smile, sitting in front of a Christmas tree in his profile pic), so I checked out his profile. He intrigued me, so I sent him a quick note. We both said that we wanted to slowly explore this new friendship forming, but within 10 days, I invited him to meet up with me in Berlin. By the time the trip rolled around, I was planning to go to Ireland instead (where he lived at the time). pages and pages of emails, hours and hours of skype, and we were pretty sure that we were "it," but like someone else said, as soon as I saw him in the airport, I KNEW! And we are living happily ever after as husband and wife now.

[Operator 1,925]

I was serving a short sentence in a re-education facility and she was working in the kitchen. I had a severely infected toenail at one point and wasn't able to attend the labor therapy sessions for about a week so I was reassigned to her kitchen. She is a lot older than me but I didn't have a real good relationship with my mother so maybe I was looking for something along those lines.

The language barrier was an issue at first but we are powering through.

[Tina and Johan 206]

We met on Interpals, a penpal site. Neither of us was looking for a relationship or anything of the sort ...

N-o-l-a! too funny. My trip to Europe was to Denmark. My daughter and I were there for 2 weeks, over Christmas, and it was awesome. During that trip was when I took a side trip to Dublin to meet my now-husband.

[Lovelymo79 0]

Not engaged yet but presently talking about marriage ☺️

I met him while on a tour at a popular tourist attraction. He's a diver/tour guide and was my guide for the day. I can't swim but I had on a life vest and he was patiently trying to coax me to jump into the deep water. I told him that I didn't come to Jamaica to die! "I am a nurse. I have patients to go back home to to take care of!" In his beautiful Jamaican accent, he replied, "Today, you are my patient, mon". Insert swoon.

He promised to hold my hand from the time we jumped until we got back on land...and he did just that. Now, he has a hold of my heart.