Warning: do not read this section if you are easily repulsed by romantic stories :)

We met at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, VA, probably in 1997. We were both involved in the theatre program, so we knew of each other as acquaintances only, that is, until we both happened to spot one another at a swing dance class taught by Tom and Debra. We then became good friends. In 1999, John left a note for the Von Kundra family after a weekend visit, with the salutation "Dear Family." John had no idea of his own prophecy. We remained friends long past that, even though John went to Tech and Kristin to JMU. In the summer of 2002, John spent his weekends in PA, where Kristin's family had just moved. During that summer, we became avid stargazers, and decided to explore our new-found interest together, as friends. We spent seemingly endless hours staring at the night sky, making wishes on shooting stars and competing to spot them first. We have so many wonderful memories of falling in love with each other while watching the stars that we decided to design our wedding around the pastime of star-gazing. Hopefully, we will have a telescope on the balcony during the wedding reception. Does anyone have one we could borrow?

To connect some of the dots here in between becoming friends and fiancés, we officially became a couple on March 31, 2005. In 2006, I (Kristin) had been invited to read one of my published short stories (actually, my only published short story) at a writing convention in Portland, OR. It was my first opportunity of this sort, so I immediately accepted and booked my flight. It wasn't until later that I realized I would be gone on March 31, the day of our first anniversary. We were bummed that we wouldn't be together that day, but John was understanding and supportive. The day I flew to Portland was also the same day that I was reading my story. After the reading, I was chatting with a women who had read a poem when John approached me in the front of the room and said hi. I was so shocked that, for a brief moment, I thought I had been teleported back to Virginia or I was having an extremely realistic hallucination. It was a good while that I stood there with a blubbering expression before I could say anything or hug this wonderful man. For our anniversary, two days later, John had purchased tickets to a Romeo and Juliet-themed orchestra. After that, I excitedly told everyone I knew about John's big surprise (which earned him a large sum of boyfriend bonus points), but then, that had everyone suspecting he might show up in Kenya when I was there in 2006, which he didn't. There are limits.

We were then engaged on September 23, 2006, which was also John's 25th birthday. As a birthday surprise, I (Kristin) had purchased tickets to an all day music festival (The Virgin Festival) on his actual birthday day. I also had planned a surprise birthday party for John, the night prior. Right before we were to go to Sweetwater with his family for dinner, I was "too sick to join." I had pretended to eat to much cake batter. The only problem was that I had made the reservation to not include me, which John found suspicious upon arriving to the restaurant. So when John came through the door, and it was dark and we were all hiding, he whispered to himself, "surprise." I didn't really know what to do. He may have suspected there was a surprise party, but he didn't suspect that all the party guests would pelt him with Care Bears! True story. So, for John's birthday, it was a day of surprises. And then, when we were driving home from the music festival, I noticed John take a wrong turn. John had planned for me to be conked out, since I was exhausted the entire day and slept through a couple sets. But I was wide-awake and telling John that I-270 was not a short-cut home. So, then it was my turn to be suspicious. Later, when we had pulled over on the Scenic View near Frederick, MD, I got the most wonderful surprise of my life when John asked me to be his wife. Yay! So, that's our story, some of it at least :)