Weddingbee Blog

I’m sure that many of you are still pretty curious about us Parasols (and, honestly, I’m thrilled that anyone is even remotely interested in us), and so I thought I would start by sharing the story of how we met and fell in love.

In summer 2007, I was a studious English major at UC Berkeley who spent most of her free time having random adventures with her girlfriends.

*Personal photo*

Mr. Parasol, on the other hand, was a full-blown band geek who was trying to balance life in a uniform with a double major in English and philosophy.

*Personal photo*

We met one hot summer day in 2007 under the Campanile on UC Berkeley campus. As recipients of Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF), we had both been invited to a sort of undergraduate research meet-and-greet. And yes, it was about as nerdy as it sounds. Mr. Parasol and I instantly clicked over our shared love of literature, thankful to have found a kindred spirit in a sea of science-focused students who were intent on telling everyone everything there is to know about salamanders.

Over the next few months, Mr. Parasol and I slowly built up a friendship. It was nice to have another humanities person to talk research with, even though our projects were as different as night and day. I was focusing on Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, while Mr. Parasol was exploring relationships between modernist writers and Greek mythology. Still, we enjoyed exchanging stories about long days spent reading in the library and tales about our favorite English professors.

Sometime in fall 2007, when school was in full swing and we hadn’t seen each other in a while, Mr. Parasol and I decided to meet up for “coffee.” We laugh about it now because neither of us drank any coffee. And let me just clarify, this was in no way, shape, or form a date. I didn’t even shower or put on makeup that day, if you don’t believe me. We went in as friends, but somehow we managed to stay and talk for over six hours. Yes, six hours. We were having such a great time together that those hours just slipped by; we both even missed commitments we had previously made for that evening.

While I went home thinking about what a great friend I had, Mr. Parasol was thinking about something more. As his roommate said to him when he got home, “There’s a girl out there who was able to talk to you for six hours straight? You need to marry her.”

After hanging out a lot more as “just friends,” Mr. Parasol finally decided to ask me out. And I responded with probably the worst thing a guy can hear: “I need to think about it.” It’s strange to think back on how I felt then, but I do know that I just wasn’t ready to start dating Mr. Parasol. I didn’t know him well enough, and after talking with him, I realized that we weren’t quite on the same page spiritually. So, eventually, I had to turn him down.

For about a month and a half, we didn’t talk. And it was terrible. My heart hurt so much, and I slowly began to realize that I really liked Mr. Parasol. At the same time, he took our spiritual conversations to heart and began cultivating his own faith more. So even though it was really difficult to be apart, the time was very productive for both of us as individuals.

Eventually, we did start hanging out again, and after a lot of “Where are we?” and “What’s going on with us?” talks, we decided to focus on deliberately getting to know one another better and spending lots of time together. Neither of us was ready to dive right into dating yet; instead, we wanted to cultivate a solid friendship and then see if we felt like we wanted to progress to a romantic relationship. We spent a lot of time together over the next few weeks, most of it in the library since we were both writing final papers and preparing for exams. But it was wonderful to do those seemingly boring things together, and we grew very close as we started spending more and more time with each other.

Finally, on the day that I left for winter break, we sat down and had one final discussion about our relationship. We both felt confident in our feelings for one another, but since we were going to be apart for about a month, it wasn’t the most ideal time to start officially dating. So we basically decided this: “Let’s see how much we talk over break and how we feel about each other by the end, and then when we get back, we’ll take it from there.”

Long story short, we talked every day over break. Most days we talked for several hours. It was amazing. Although it was terrible not being around each other physically, we had so much fun just talking for hours on end. We learned so much about one another and developed such a beautiful intimacy. About midway through break, Mr. Parasol told me, “So, a lot of people are confused about this girl who I talk to every night. Would it be OK if I told them you were my girlfriend?” By then, I was more than ready to say yes, and from then on out we were officially a couple.

Our first picture together as a couple / *Personal photo*

Over the past three-and-a-half years, we have gone through so much together.

Graduation from UC Berkeley / *Personal photo*

Crazy adventures at Lake Tahoe / *Personal photo*

Shared secrets / *Personal photo*

Fun at Disneyland / *Personal photo*

Life in New York / *Personal photo*

And lots of Broadway shows! / *Personal photo*

Graduation from Columbia / *Personal photo*

Needless to say, it’s been one crazy and incredibly exciting ride! We’ve had our ups and downs, and life has not been easy for us. But through it all we’ve had each other, and our love for one another has only grown. Each experience has been richer because we are together, and every day we challenge, encourage, and support each other. I know that the future, while unknown and undoubtedly full of many difficulties, will be infinitely better because I have Mr. Parasol by my side.

How did you and your significant other meet and fall in love? Did any of you have hesitations like me?