The
Alisandra Photography Blog

“So how did y’all meet?” Every one asks this question. My “short answer” is that we were both in Invervarsity Christian Fellowship at JMU! Yay! But his is the long story. Part 1 begins where any love story does. When you first laid your eyes upon him…

I first remember Chad at a retreat for Intervarsity. I merely had a 5 second conversation with him, but the first thing I noticed about him was…

Ok, before I go any further, let me just ask you not to judge me. I swear I have depth beyond what I’m about to say.

…his butt. I can’t deny it. There was no crush yet, just an acknowledgement of a shapely booty. I found out later that he and his best friend had spent the summer before school doing lunges and squats.

So now that THAT is out, fast forward to the following fall. I had recently broken up with a guy and was settling very nicely into my singleness. I was a senior and no relationships were on the horizon. I just was convinced I would graduate that way. And I was really content! I hadn’t been single most of college and it kind of felt good! I noticed Chad again at a leadership retreat**. I was on the exec leadership team for Intervarsity, and Chad was a sophomore and a new small group leader.We didn’t have any in depth conversations, but I saw through group discussions how honest and open he was with his shortcomings. My friend Lizzie and I looked at each other and gave each other puppy eyes because of how sweet his honesty was. I’ll admit a very small crush. Once Intervarsity assigned the freshmen to their leaders, we had ANOTHER retreat for new students and their leaders. That is when I was very intentional about talking with him. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything we talked about EXCEPT that we both said we’d like to honeymoon in Charleston…

The months following, we ran into each other a lot at JMU. I worked at TDU, which is kind of a student union with pool tables and a stage. I would sit behind the desk and Chad would pull a chair up in between classes. That is where we really got to know each other. He’d help me close by putting up chairs and locking the doors. By November, we were hanging out a lot. There was a dance coming up – Melrose. Chad asked me to Melrose! I was pretty surprised! And super excited! Until he told me WHY he asked me to Melrose.

“I told all of my small group guys that they had to ask a girl, so I figured I’d lead by example.” Great. It had been 4 months AND he asked me to a dance. I still really didn’t know if the kid liked me.

You’ll have to wait to read part 2 next week…

 **Chad [Upside down] and I [blue sweatshirt]. Fall 2007. Thanks facebook, for the photo!