Forward:

Friends and Family,

When Haley and I first started planning our marriage, we went through the typical list of wedding planning responsibilities, volunteering for tasks that we cared about or for which we had a specific vision. Once those tasks were assigned, we each volunteered for things to which we felt we were well suited. When I volunteered to write ‘Our Story’, I had no specific vision or format in mind. I had recently finished a re-watch of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ – the mid 2000’s CBS sitcom, for anyone reading this in the future—and I was determined to get to the point faster than Ted did, but otherwise it just seemed like something I would enjoy, and which I was sure to do passably.. I half expected some sort of discussion or challenge, or an ask to explain what I had in mind. Instead, Haley simply agreed with me, saying that she had assumed I’d do this part. We moved on to the next item on the list.

Over a year later, not once has she wavered or come back to re-negotiate. Perhaps more surprisingly, despite my showing no signs of tangible progress, she has not shown any sort of concern, simply trusting me when I say that I’ve been writing it in my mind for several years now, and that it’s going to be great. According to the calendar, it’s time to send out wedding invitations, and according to multiple disappointed family members, our wedding website (98% made by Haley) is beautiful, but missing ‘Our Story’. So now I sit down to put pen to paper on the first few chapters of ‘Our Story’. This tale promises to be epic romance, the likes of which Jane Austen herself could only envy, albeit delivered on a timeline that only George R. R. Martin could call prompt.

This story is quintessentially about ‘us’. It is our story. This version of it, however, is written by me. And so, what you are about to read is my story. While this story is a true story, it does not focus on the truth, at least not the objective truth, but on our truth. On my truth. This subtlety is the best way that I, someone whose writing has, to this point in my life, been exclusively analytical, can describe how I will approach a story focused on feelings instead of facts. If you’re reading this and smirking to yourself about a nerdy and somewhat awkward STEM kid who grew up to take a STEM job, and over a decade later has now found himself writing a love story in his free time, please understand—the irony is not lost.

This story is long and at times meandering, and you may find yourself doubting my commitment to getting to the point quickly. I didn’t follow any sort of guidelines or mold; just did it live. Some of you will enjoy reading our story. If you do, please let Haley know what a good choice she made trusting me to put this on the page. As with any writing, some of you probably will not enjoy it. For those people, please note that I alone am to be held responsible for the contents of these chapters, and Haley’s only real fault here is agreeing to marry me in the first place, a decision I still marvel at from time to time. I hope you enjoy reading! and I look forward to seeing you all in June to write the beginning of the next chapter together. For now, please grab a drink, fire up a… sandwich, find a comfortable place to sit (and some snacks), and enjoy.

With Love,

Allen

Chapter One: The First Date

This love story begins in the timeless post-modern tradition of two souls, both recently out of relationships, turning to the bountiful and never disappointing world of Online Dating. For those of you who are fortunate enough to not have experienced the online dating world recently, stories like ours, while not at all rare, frequently come with numerous prequel stories of all the Mr. or Mrs. Wrongs that each have met along the path toward meeting their lifelong partner. We won’t hear about those prequels here, but I assure you, they exist. It’s for this reason, among others, that each of us, and I think especially me, approached the first date with some healthy skepticism.

When it comes to internet dating, Rule #1 is that until you look at the person you’re talking to in the flesh, you MUST assume that the person does not actually exist or is trying to catfish you. Haley and I had been chatting for a couple days at this point, and with small-talk accomplished, and most signs pointing toward the idea that we’d get along, and that probably she was a real person and even the same person from her profile pictures, it was time for us to meet. We had planned to grab a drink at a local restaurant / bar on Main Street in Newark, DE and because the world knew I was on my way to a first date, traffic and construction conspired to make my trip painfully slow, and I was late.

On her side, he had just messaged that he was running late, and she decided that she would not show up before him, so she made herself comfortable on a bench nearby the agreed location and sent him a message to let her know once he’d arrived. Once she was satisfied that he’d had time to navigate the construction, find parking, and make his way to the bar, she went ahead inside.

I walked into the bar a bit anxious. A few of the more recent messages had been odd, not in a concerning way, but in the type of way that made me think that maybe she was using speech-to-text, maybe for the first time. Maybe she is just distracted, I thought. As I ignored the nagging feeling that perhaps I was about to get another lesson in Rule #1 of internet dating, I began to look for my date. Not a minute went by, and there she was! She even looked exactly like the photos on her dating profile! Great success!

Despite a somewhat inauspicious prelude, the date was off to a great start. We were both enjoying ourselves, and the environment was alive with the energy of a college town in springtime. The world, feeling bad for the delay it had caused my arrival, gave us a whole 15 minutes, enough time to really hit it off and start to enjoy ourselves before it decided that nothing worth having should be easy. She suddenly turns to me. “Can we go somewhere else?” “Of course.” I said, I think a little bit concerned “Is something wrong?”. “My ex just walked in she says, and I’d rather not…”. So went elsewhere and carried on. We spent most of that beautiful April night together, and throughout the Spring of 2019 we enjoyed many more nights together. It was fun, it was refreshing, and it was not going to last very long.

Many stories have a part where the author gets lazy and refers to plot events driven by God, or Fate, or ‘The Wheel of Time’. This story is no exception. I’ll refer to it simply as ‘the world’ and then all of you can come remind me of what really happened to cause these events. In late spring of 2019, only a couple months after meeting, the world had different plans for us than an immediate and simple ‘happily ever after’. Haley was offered her dream job—teaching orchestra at a prestigious program in Southern MD. She accepted and planned to move away. I was in-line for an overdue and significant promotion at work, needing to be in Newark, DE for the pre-COVID normal five days in the office each week. I stayed put. Then barely two months after first meeting, we said our goodbyes.

Chapter Two: Electric Boogaloo

Sometimes it seems the world has a curious mind of its own. Not a year after saying goodbye, the world turned and we were blessed with the COVID-19 pandemic. I use the term ‘blessed’ because within the context of our story, we’re the protagonists, and if not for the pandemic and ensuing lockdown and isolation, the pattern of life likely never would have seen our threads woven back together. Imagining a love story where the two main characters never meet is an odd thing to try, and so, for the sake of this story, and ONLY for the sake of this story, the pandemic was a blessing.

Like so many blessings, the pandemic did not start out feeling like a blessing. It started out as “Two weeks at home”, then “Six weeks to flatten the curve”, and finally “Life is solitude. Get over it.” Before we knew it, the new normal was social isolation as a rule, with the exceptions being distanced, or involving long quarantine periods to reduce risk. Both of us were used to living with / around other people, and working in person 5 days per week, so this was a period of challenge and adjustment. I at least had my roommates / tenants to help keep me sane, but Haley, living by herself, soon found herself opting for a return to family life, going back home and spending weeks with her parents and brothers, alternating with weeks sitting alone in her basement apartment. And so our lives went, until we, like everyone else felt like perhaps things would never go back to normal.

I don’t remember to this day what caused me to reach out again. Maybe it was that I was going through social withdrawal (still), maybe it was something on social media that subconsciously got her back in my mind, or maybe it was that tricksy world deciding that our lives were coming back together again whether we liked it or not. But there I was, one day, in late 2020, thinking about Haley, wondering how she was navigating such unprecedented times “Hey, what’s up?” I know, very smooth. I promise not to turn this into something inspirational or educational, but for any of the romantics out there reading, sometimes your entire future hinges on saying hello. This was the case for my future, little did I know it at the time. I don’t remember what she said but I think it was something like “My job is impossible to do well remotely, the only people I’ve seen in months are my family, and I’ve tried every recipe HelloFresh has to offer, but I’m doing great! How are you?” and just like that we reconnected as good friends as I was, at that time, in the middle of one of my prequel stories. I didn’t know at the time it was a prequel, but I would figure that out in one of the next chapters.

Our friendship continued this way for quite some time throughout 2020 and into 2021. We frequented the beach, the state parks, and the local hiking trails, anything to be out and about while avoiding crowds and quarantines. Our friendship grew strong, and the weather grew cold. Winter came, and beaches and hiking trails became binge-watching our favorite shows, and playing cards. While parties weren’t exactly common during those months, we did see some friends in small groups, and before long she was one of my closest friends, despite the novelty of our friendship. I am someone who makes a big deal out of friendships, and while I realized at the time what a blessing having someone like Haley in my life was, but it took yet another (less obvious) blessing to make me realize the extent.

Chapter 3: It Gets Worse Before it Gets Better

At the end of March 2021, I was blessed with what would be my last break-up. I didn’t know at the time it would be my last, and somewhat like a pandemic, it is hard to see a breakup as a blessing when it happens, but now looking back, I have a hard time thinking about it any other way. This is a short chapter, both because it is only about me, and because during this time most of my focus was internal, as I worked through the post breakup self-care, physical fitness, and productivity routines that I had learned from some of the earlier prequel endings. We’ll fast forward instead to the point where the story becomes a love story, and where many people would wrongly argue that it actually begins.

Chapter 4: A New Hope

It was Summer of 2021, and after a few months of healing, soul searching, and eating a thoroughly impressive amount of ice cream (yes, it works for men as well) I was fully restored from my breakup and ready to try again. This time, however, I skipped the dating apps and did what perhaps I should have done two years before. Don’t worry, I wasn’t about to lean on my prolific texting game. The next time I saw Haley, I just asked her straight up. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but I’m pretty sure she agreed, and we kicked off ‘Summer 2021 – The Redemption Tour’. The first few months of any new relationship is fantastic. In this instance, we were not just armed with blossoming love, but with two rounds of COVID 19 vaccinations, the redemption for the lost Summer of 2020 was in full force.

We went to concerts, food festivals, holiday parties, the beach, anything and everything we could afford and had time for. By the end of the summer, Haley was joining my family for our annual week at Camp Ticawa, the Abendroth Family camp on Long Lake (a big deal for a future Abendroth), and after that, we took our first out-of-town vacation together—a camping trip to Stowe, VT, with a night in Burlington to see the big city. As we counted down the days until school started again (an odd concept for me after a decade in the corporate world) we reflected on our summer, and it was obvious we had just laid down the template for what a life would look like.

Chapter 5: Reality Strikes Back

When school started again for the year Haley had to be back in MD full time; I could only describe the feeling as one of withdrawal. Each of us working long hours, now tied to an in-person schedule, and living over two hours apart, we saw precious little of each other. I think we would have made it through despite the challenges, but never got the chance to see what that future would have looked like, because this chapter was always meant to be short. We were determined to make it work, and perhaps sensing that no amount of interference was going to change our direction, the world relented and let us be together.

Chapter 6: Return of the Blessings

It was late September when my phone rang. It was Haley, “You’re not going to believe this…” “I’m not going to believe what?” “I think I just got offered a job in Middletown, DE!” and then me, “…Really?”. Finally a blessing that was obviously a blessing. Almost as if the world was apologizing for all the chaos it had woven into our lives thus far, the world had seemingly seen fit to have an orchestra job open in a neighboring school district to my home district in Delaware. It was at one of the best public schools in the state, well known for its arts programs, and the recommendation had come personally from someone Haley studied with during her student practicum. A few interviews later, she had the job. Cue one of the busiest months of our lives.

Transitioning to a new job in a new state is never easy, but when you do it as a teacher in the first month of the school year, at the same time as you uproot your life for the past two years, find a place to live, and take care of the world’s most anxious cat, it can be downright tumultuous. Joining a new school sometimes requires medical lab work, and while Haley was getting the needed tests done for her new job, a ‘freak fainting accident’ left her on the floor of the doctor’s office unconscious with a massive egg on her head, a serious concussion, and a trip to the ER coming. Haley has always prided herself on going above and beyond, and I’m occasionally curious if this ‘accident’ was not accidental but rather some shrewd attempt to “up the difficulty” of the already daunting task of moving her life to Delaware. If that was the case, it was certainly a lesson in getting what she asked for.

At the ER, a CT scan revealed a large mass, the size of a grape, in Haley’s brain. If the stress from everything else hadn’t been enough, she now needed brain scans / MRIs urgently, and because of her job change, was uninsured. This is the type of overload that would derail many people, understandably sending them into a tailspin. Haley, however, didn’t spin, she didn’t meltdown, if anything, she thrived. She took what should have been chaos and remained calm and organized throughout. A couple weeks later she was moved-in, cat still alive albeit grumpy, had started her new job, gotten health insurance, found a doctor, and gotten the needed scans. And then, as if the world was saying, “Well done, you get an A in managing adversity, the test is now over.” her next visit to the doctor revealed that the mass had been a false-positive, some sort of glitch in the equipment, and a full MRI showed her brain to be completely mass-free.

When that news came in, we shared a moment of joy together. Another blessing we didn’t have to wait to realize. We were closer and stronger together than ever before, and not a moment too soon, as the holidays were approaching, and anybody who has taken a partner home for the first family holiday knows it has the potential to challenge a couple’s strength; and in our family, this potential was more of a guarantee. Add to the equation bringing along a cat who was determined not to be brought to the in-laws for the holiday, and we were certainly due for a test of our commitment.

Chapter 7: Life Can Get Shitty

November 2021 Haley experienced Thanksgiving with my family. Any remaining doubts I had in our relationship were gone after that. She had a wonderful time (or at least told me she did), and anyone who can thrive in that environment should be kept for the long haul. After Thanksgiving, we stopped back by her parents’ house where we had dropped the cat on the way up. Normally this part wouldn’t make a love story, but we are both family oriented people, our folks and siblings aren’t sold separately, and this visit would give me the opportunity to make a good impression, although admittedly not in a way I would have ever imagined or chosen.

We were on our way out the door, bags packed, truck packed, only needing to get Banjo, the demon kitty, back into her crate for travel. On the way up a week earlier, this task had led to Banjo using me like she might use a litter box, and me vowing to never touch her again. Unfortunately, my dedication to Haley (and to getting home to my own bed) led me right back into the line of fire. The difference this time was that instead of getting a funny story, Haley’s mom, Lisa, got a first-hand view of my service, and unfortunately, of the 2nd verse of the litterbox song that Banjo sang for me. If you told an earlier version of me that getting covered in cat shit twice in a week would end up being a blessing in disguise, I’d probably have just said “I’m good, no blessings today please.” I wasn’t offered that chance, thank god. I got the cat in the crate, and then in the truck, I changed my clothes and waited while Haley and her mom said their goodbyes.

Haley came out a few minutes later with tears in her eyes. Haley crying can mean nearly anything, she has a versatile arsenal of tear types, good for almost any occasion, something I am still getting used to. I couldn’t decide as she got in beside me if she was crying from laughter, crying from the smell, or just crying to cry—yeah, she does that sometimes. I was wrong. Haley was crying tears of joy. “My mom just told me to marry you.” She said “Throw the cat out the window on the way home if you have to Haley, but marry that man.” As I pulled slowly down the driveway an attentive observer might have even seen a tear or two slide down my cheeks. While I’m sure I would have blamed it on the splatter from before if put to the question, I am sure you all have guessed at this point that she and I were crying the same tears of joy.

Chapter 8: Checking it Twice

The rest of the holiday season went by in a flash, and before we knew it, we were looking back on the first year of holidays with what would be our future in laws, and we miraculously had no issues whatsoever outside of a couple dry-cleaning bills. As early 2022 began, I found myself making a mental list of things I would need to do before proposing marriage to Haley. Buy a ring, have our families meet each other, ask her Dad for permission, pick a time and place, invite everyone she wants there, coordinate travel, maintain the element of surprise (per her explicit wishes). The mental notes were stacking up, I assure you. Maybe this is the part where it makes sense why at the time I was working as a project manager for Goliath National Bank. The entire exercise started with the requirements (provided mostly by Haley – THANK YOU), then looked at resources, time, constraints, etc. Tasks were sized, S, M, L according to complexity. Most of the pieces were straight forward, predictable. But a conversation with a woman’s father asking for his daughter in marriage wasn’t something I had ever done before, and it wasn’t something I wanted to rush. I took my time.

In August of 2022, Haley’s family joined our family for a couple of days during our family week at Camp Ticawa. This was the first time either of our families would meet each other (Check!), and it was the penultimate ‘L’ task on my list. The days went great, and high on the confidence of both families enjoying themselves, I considered approaching Haley’s dad to have that conversation I still wasn’t quite sure how to start.

We were preparing dinner in the Ticawa kitchen (a notoriously loud place) as I considered again the situation. There was no doubt, and thus no hurry. I could have the conversation the next time, in a quieter setting. I decided to wait.

The world laughed at me, seemingly disappointed in my decision, and suggested I decide otherwise. “You want to go fishing down on the point?” It was Haley’s dad, Kevin. “No thanks,” I said, “but I’m happy to go stand with you while you fish.” I don’t love fishing, but Kevin does, I wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to spend some time with him in his happy place. As we walked down the hill to one of the quietest and most peaceful places on earth, I reflected on the irony of thinking just seconds before that I ought to pick a quieter place. It was almost like the world was trying to steer my hand in a blatant violation of my free-will, which for those of you who know me is not something I’m tremendously fond of. As Kevin cast his line, and we looked into the setting sun, I weighed again the scenario, deciding finally that tonight was not the night (take that, you meddling world!), and I was just going to enjoy a night with my future father-in-law. NOPE. “You gonna marry my daughter, or what?” his voice cut across the waves washing at our feet. I must have been stunned, but as far as I remember, I said something confident and cool like, “Yep, that’s the plan.” “Good, good, he said. Don’t take forever about it.” Taking this as affirmative consent to the question I still hadn’t directly asked, I changed the subject. A short while longer, the fish weren’t biting, and we were walking back up the hill, with the sounds of laughter from the porch filling our ears, and excitement filling my heart.

Chapter 9: The End of a Chapter

For anyone wondering why this story took so long to be shared, you can point the cannon directly at this chapter.

When I think about the various chapters of my life, some of them have clear beginnings and endings. Some do not. For some chapters, the beginnings or endings are predictable. For some, like attending college, both the beginning and ending were predictable (or should have been for a more attentive student). When some chapters close, it is only years later that I am able to point to the exact moment that the page turned and a new chapter began. Sometimes it is much more immediately evident. In the case of this chapter, I watched the page turn in real time, and not just for me, but for Haley, for my family, and for so many of the people in our lives and in our community.

On an inauspicious night in September of 2022, we got the news that my Dad had fallen down the stairs, and was en-route to the emergency room. I still remember being in the ER that night as the attending physician explained to me in medical terms that while my father still clung to life in a coma, the chapter of my life that involved me having a father was over.

I remember walking back to the car with my sister Rose just minutes later and giving her the same heart-wrenching news. I remember calling my brother, who was already en-route, and telling him to drive safe and not hurry. I must have called several more people I remember the outpouring of support as the next day a small army of family and friends were with us in Newark, DE to pray, share stories, and collectively hold on to hope that the doctors were wrong, and a miracle was awaiting us. By Saturday evening we had no choice but to let him go. We didn’t let go quietly, however, throwing the biggest and loudest farewell party the Christiana Care ICU had ever seen. Dad would have been very proud. For those of you who weren’t there, we were 15 strong, armed with several musical instruments, Dad’s favorite whiskey, and all the shot glasses we could pilfer from the supply closet of his room. Dad would have been proud of the way we handled that weekend, and his goodbye, but he would have been far prouder of how his growing family would handle the weeks and months to come.

The events of that weekend still seem a little surreal to me, but the events of the following 6 months are crystal clear and are the part more important to this story. For the next several months I spent a little over 50% of my time in New Hampshire to be with Mom to offer what company and support I could as she went through the most difficult time in her life. It was during this time, as Haley seamlessly picked up the responsibilities I had to drop in my daily life at home, that the certainty and unshakable confidence in our relationship reached its maturity. Haley took care of our house, our cat, our roommate, some of my other affairs, and most importantly, of herself. I can say confidently that I hope we never have to endure a similar time again. With equal confidence, I can say life will find a different way to challenge us and strain our capacity. With utmost confidence I can say that when life does decide to throw us another curve-ball, we’ll be ready to handle it together, as a team. Dad was always a silver-lining type of person, and it seems right that the darkest cloud to ever cast shadow on my life helped uncover the brightest silver lining with which I have ever been blessed.

Chapter 10: Another New Chapter

Even while we navigated the dark and painful winter of ’22-’23, my eyes were on the light at the end of the tunnel. My plans for a January proposal were out, and quickly replaced with a plan for June, coinciding with the end of the school year and the less busy season at my work. The opportunity to celebrate all summer long was too good for me to pass up, and a year later as we planned our wedding, we agreed to use the same approach, reserving a few months to focus fully on celebrating our growing relationship.

In this instance, however, Haley didn’t know the plan. She had given remarkably clear instructions about what she wanted for her dream proposal. It had to be a surprise. She wanted EVERYONE in her family and eventual bridal party to be there. It had to be somewhere meaningful. And it had to be a surprise. If anyone has ever tried to plan a surprise party with forty guests, all of whom are close friends and family of the surprise-ee, then you can already imagine the types of challenges presented, the attention given to Location Sharing, and the number of warnings given to the notoriously chatty ladies in her life that they had better not spill the beans (Looking at you Moms). I was a bit out of my league. This is one of the times that the world just seemed to reach down and say, “I know this one is beyond you, let me give you a hand here.” I picked a date and a place, I invited the right people, and life handled the rest, giving diversions and false-flags to help keep it a surprise. As I told Haley we were going to celebrate my birthday (which should have been a dead-giveaway), one of her best friends was in the Finger Lakes, my Mom was on a plane out to Europe the next day, and due to my fat thumbs missing a number on a text message, one of the party never got the invite and quite by accident threw Haley off the scent even more.

By the time we got to the scene a day early, I was confident enough that she was unsuspecting, that I took her to the same restaurant where the party was planned for the next day, scoped the place out, chatted with the manager, and basked smugly in the fact that I had managed to pull it off. The rest was easy, just dodging torrential thunderstorms, keeping Haley well fed (a must!) and trying to explain why I wanted to go back to the same restaurant a second time—thankfully the Coconut Shrimp were good enough to get her on board.

As impressed as I was with how all the guests had managed to keep the secret, I knew it couldn’t hold out forever. As I moved Haley into position where everyone could see, and the undercover photographer – our good friend Erin who had pulled off a super-spy level disguise –could get a clear shot, and prepared to get down on one knee, a look of realization came across her face. I learned that day, that even though a group of women may be able to keep a secret for 5 months from one of their friends, there is no possible way on earth to convince them that there is a photographer on-site, and absolutely no need for 15 people to stand with phones up and pretending to be doing something else. As Haley realized what was happening, I accelerated through about 5 minutes of monologue, and before she could get the words “I hate you” out of her mouth more than two or three times, reminded her to “Say yes and kiss me.” She did. And it was time to party.

Chapter 11: Planning a Wedding

Planning a wedding is fun. Planning a wedding is also no fun at all. Any of you who have been married likely understand, and those of you who haven’t please take my word for it. We visited one venue; we reserved it. We talked to one band; we booked them. We met with one photographer; we booked him. Then it was time for the details. This was another experience where I fell in love with Haley all over again. Most of you know that I am not a details person. Most of you probably have realized that Haley IS a details person. In the opposite vein, my career in technology / finance has made me quite prolific with spreadsheets, and her time with me has helped her realize that if she tells me clearly what the requirements are, I can make organized data appear, tracked, reconciled, and accurate. Teamwork at its finest, but you aren’t here to read about spreadsheets.

Chapter 12: Unwritten

At this point, rather than tell you all about the wedding we planned, I am going to invite you to come witness it for yourself and to be a part of it. You’ll get to see the results of all the decisions, without any of the boring details, or myriad frustrations, miscommunications, or shortcomings. You’ll get to see our flowers, taste or food choices, and see what we dance to (and no, for those of you wondering, it WON’T be anything by Natasha Benningfield). We couldn’t be more excited to be writing the chapter together. Thank you for being part of our story so far, for being part of writing this next chapter, and for all the contributions you will all continue to make.

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