Love At First Sight?

As of today, we are officially one month away from the wedding. To be exact, we are 29 days 13 hours and 33 minutes away from the ceremony starting. And no, I didn’t just calculate that, our wedding wire app has the countdown as soon as it opens. Also, as I write this blog post my sister, Mike, and myself are all sending gifs via imessage in a group message to explain our excitement (Lauren and Mike) and our anxiety (me) about the wedding being a month away. The funny thing is that at this point it really feels like Mike and I are already an old married couple because we’ve been together for a while and have a house together. Even with that, we are both still looking forward to the wedding, being officially married, and gathering with some of our friends and family to celebrate. I haven’t blogged in a while so I figured today was the perfect day to write something and start a little series leading up to the wedding. So today, I give you the story of our first date J Mike might get embarrassed, but he needs to get used to that if he isn’t already since he is marrying me.

For the record, I asked Mike out first. I let him pick the place, time, and date, but I initiated the date. He decided we should meet on a Friday night downtown and the Wine Bar on Palafox. It was the night before I had to run a 5K very early in the morning, but I figured the date wouldn’t last that long and I would be fine to get home and get plenty of sleep before the race. As all girls do, I stressed about what I was going to wear and eventually settled on a pair of jeans, pink tank top, black cardigan and some boots. I looked cute if I must say so :) This was also my first official date in two years, so I was clearly a little nervous.

When I got to the Wine Bar, Mike was waiting outside for me. It was cold because it was January, but I remember thinking Mike’s jacket was a little extreme for the Florida cold (it was a puffy winter coat). He shook my hand when we met. It was really weird and I’ve told him that a thousand times. I don’t think anyone has shook my hand on a first date before Mike. That should have been my sign that he was a winner. We went inside, got seated, and started our date. The conversation was easy, I laughed, and we got to know each other. We had both eaten so we just ordered a glass of wine each. When we finished the first glass we were still talking and enjoying the date, so when the waitress asked if we wanted another drink, I assumed we would get one. Mike said no, so being courteous, I also said no. Then we sat there talking. For another two hours. With no more wine. The waitress probably thought we were crazy and hated that by the end of the night we had taken up a table for three hours and had only had two glasses of wine total. I thought we were nuts.

So when the check came I really wasn’t sure what to do. It just kind of sat at the table (we had to pay at the bar) and Mike didn’t acknowledge the check and I didn’t really either. I would have been totally fine to pay for our super expensive two glasses of wine, or to split it, but there was for sure an awkward little while of me wondering if he was going to pick up the check and pay for it. Good news, eventually he did.

We had parked near each other so we walked together back to our cars. When we were close to our cars but not actually at them, Mike stopped right in front of the door to one of my favorite bars in town, Seville Quarter. There was a bouncer right at the door who we stopped in front of so he got to hear Mike’s whole awkward goodbye, this was fun, we should do it again sometime speech. Then we said goodbye with no hug and luckily no awkward handshake again, we just parted ways and headed back to our cars.

For the record, the next day I talked with my mum and specifically told her that he was nice but a little quirky and I wasn’t sure if I liked him, but I would go on a second date with him to give him another chance. She likes to remind me of this conversation on a regular basis, but I guess it was a good thing I gave him a second chance, huh? And now that I’ve finally finished this we are 29 days, 12 hours and 40 minutes away from the ceremony.