The Bride
Pauline was born in Leeds, England but soon moved to Ireland, living in Kildare until she was eight years old. At that point, she and the family moved to Bayonne, NJ (everyone makes mistakes), where she lived throughout high school. While in high school, she ran track, won numerous academic awards and earned a full academic scholarship to Boston College in 1997. During her years at Boston College, she became an avid rugby player and majored in Psychology. In 2001, she graduated with a B.A. and started her healthcare career, working at a behavior rehabilitation program, eventually becoming the youngest Director of Behavior Services the company ever had. She started medical school at Boston University in 2005 and will be graduating with her M.D. the day after the wedding! She plans on specializing in Interventional Radiology.
The Groom
Kris
was born in Lynn, Massachusetts and grew up playing baseball, soccer and track. He graduated from Lynn English High School in 1990 and the University of New Hampshire in 1994. He began his career at the same behavior rehabilitation program where Pauline eventually would get her start and worked as a Senior Behavior Specialist and Case Manager. He went back to school for web design in 2001 and worked as a web designer for Pearson Education. He has been a musician most of his life, as a singer, songwriter and guitarist, and had small success with the band Eden Row, touring much of the U.S. He is currently the Lead Web Designer for Newell Rubbermaid's Technology Group.
Our Story
Her version
We met in summer of 2001. I had just graduated Boston College and had decided to work in a mental hospital. Having been raised in an Irish family, I thought I would feel right at home there. During a tour of the facility, I met Kris, my new boss. I remember he barely looked up from his work - not exactly love at first sight. Over the next few months, I didn't really go out of my way to get to know Kris much; he was clearly fed up with working in the mental health field and was just waiting to start web design school in a couple of months. So, although he was a pretty low-key boss and always gave me the cush assignments, I generally just regarded him as the "angry guy" and stayed out of his way. Well, at Kris’ going away party, we finally got to talking. There was definitely a spark there, but he was leaving the company; I’d probably never see him again, and I just figured it was the whiskey talking anyway.
Well, obviously, it didn’t turn out quite that way. After Kris graduated, he was looking for a flexible job that would allow him to easily tour with his band Eden Row and tide him over until he got a web design job. By now, I had just become the Director of the Behavior department at a sister facility and helped him get a job there. Before long we began hanging out outside of work. I clearly remember thinking, “Well, this is gonna go nowhere.” On the surface, we had nothing in common; I know nothing about music and even less about the Red Sox; plus, he had weird hair and a funny accent. On top of that, I wasn't even sure he was that into me until one night, I was
supposed to hang out with him and his band mates at a local bar and he showed up by himself. He still claims the band guys ditched him at the last minute and he just felt obliged to come get me, but I refuse to believe it. That was our first night out alone - just the two us - no one else to help carry the conversation. What could we possibly have to say to each other? I was sure there would be crickets chirping in the background the entire time, but instead we really hit it off. I knew I was in trouble when Kris called me up late night after a rehearsal to see if I wanted to meet him out with the band guys for Chinese food. I was already in bed, and I HATE Chinese food, but trying to seem cavalier, I acted as though it was an amazing coincidence that I, too, was planning on getting Chinese food right at that moment. I had never, ever, ever done anything like that before just to hang out with a guy. I met him out and we held hands under the table the entire time (it’s not like I needed my hands to eat any of that awful food), and I knew I was hooked. Within three months, we moved in together - again completely out of character for me. It hasn't been an easy six years, between his time away with the band and my time stuck in the books, but they have been very happy ones. And I love him even more now than I did back then (especially now that he got rid of that weird hair).
His Version
I remember first seeing Pauline while she was being given the tour of the behavior facility I was working in. It was near the end of the day so I was in a rush, and I was introduced to her very quickly. She was going to be a new Behavior Specialist, and I was her boss - not a great start I guess. Over the next few months, all that I knew of her was that she was from NJ and had graduated from Boston College. We didn't really talk too much. We'd say hello and make small talk as I gave her assignments each day. When I decided to go back to school for web design, the company threw me a going-away party at which point we actually talked a bit more. Over many beers and a few shots of Crown Royal, we talked about what it was like being a supervisor because she was interested in eventually taking my open position. She seemed cool but I was leaving and I remember her mentioning she was probably moving back to Jersey so that was that.
Then in the summer of 2002, I saw her out one night in Boston and we got to talking again. I was playing in Eden Row and was looking for work, as the IT industry was pretty dry at the time. She had been working as a case manager, coincidently in my hometown of Lynn, and was being promoted so there was an opening for her position at the facility. She mentioned it to me and within a few weeks we were working together again. This time, we began hanging out a lot, she came to a lot of my shows and we began to get to know each other better. I thought this was cool but no big deal. I was the cocky lead singer of an up-and-coming Boston rock band and the last thing in the world I wanted or needed was
a girlfriend. And I kept telling myself this as we grew closer and closer but it didn't matter. It was inevitable. There was no getting around it. I was falling for her and I knew I was in trouble the first time she went home to NJ for Thanksgiving. I missed her a ton and even gave her a call to tell her - not cocky at all. I was hooked. We've been together for over 6 years now and there's not a person on this planet who I love and admire more.
The Engagement
Her Story
We had been dating four years already and just moved into our third apartment. I was starting to wonder where this was all going. We had begun to make "big purchases" together and stuff in the apartment was beginning to be "ours," not "mine" or "his." One such purchase, was our new couch. I loved this couch, so much so that I almost didn’t want people to sit on it. Well, I must have been more obsessed with the living room furniture than even I knew because when Kris woke me up in the middle of the night, whispering “Sweetie, I need you come out to the living room,”
all I could think was ”Great! He spilled something on the couch!”
Rubbing sleep from
my eyes, wondering if we had any upholstery cleaner in the house, I stumbled into the living room. I coudn't figure out what was going on, there were candles everywhere, music was playing... “What had he been doing out here?” It wasn’t until I saw the two glasses of wine on the coffee table that I realized what was going on. I wheeled around and there was Kris down on one knee. Honestly, everything after that is a bit of a blur. I kept chanting over and over in my head, “Pauline, don’t forget any of this! Don’t forget any of this!” but I was so busy repeating the mantra that I didn't actually hear anything he said, but I knew when to say, "Yes!" After that we walked down to the beach, a couple of blocks away, and watched the sun rise. Our lives together were about to begin.
7/27/06 - Wollaston Beach 5:15am
His Story
I wanted to do something different and more importantly, I wanted to do something that she wouldn't catch on to (which is difficult in and of itself). Somewhere along the way, I realized that the only time when she was truly not aware of anything going on around her was at night while she was sleeping. We had just moved into our new apartment in Quincy, only a 5 minute walk to the beach. So on the morning of July 27th, 2006, I woke her up around 4:30am. I told her she needed to come into the
living
7/27/06 - Wollaston Beach sunrise
room to see something. As she walked into the living room, barely able to open her eyes, she saw the entire room lit with candles, Ray Charles music playing in the background and two glasses of wine on our coffee table. I heard her mumble, "What is this?" and then she looked at me and I could see she knew what was coming next. I got down on one knee, gave her my speech, showed her the ring and she said yes. We drank our wine, grabbed a couple sweatshirts and walked down to the beach just before the sun was rising (I saw the day before that the sun was rising at 5am so we had to get down there quick). We stood on the beach and watched the sunrise, but to be honest, she was more interested in looking at the ring.
