An email started it all...

From the bride....

My handsome husband-to-be and I met on match.com, he sent me an email a few weeks before his family was coming to Las Vegas for vacation. I was very hesitant to even respond to his email since we lived on opposite sides of the country and he was only going to be in Las Vegas for vacation. I had no desire to be a tour guide. I decided to go ahead and respond to his email since he seemed like a nice and normal guy. We exchanged a few emails and then exchanged phone numbers. The first time we talked on the phone we hit it off completely, we were on the phone for close to 3 hours! 

I met him down on Fremont street on March 3, 2010. He and his family had gone to dinner at Margaritaville and he bought me a purple Hawaiian lei. We walked around Fremont Street, played slot machines and talked for hours. Nothing that I would normally do on a Wednesday night! But something about him drew me in. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet up again before he left Las Vegas.

After he left Las Vegas we talked just about every day for hours each day. When we were not talking on the phone, we were texting back and forth. A few weeks after he left we were both saying how much we wanted to see each other again and he said I should go see him in Connecticut. I went to Connecticut to see my handsome husband-to-be April 27th and spent a week with him and it was amazing! I knew before it was even time for me to come back to Las Vegas that I could not picture my life without him. The rest is history!

Now...the Groom's side

My bride-to-be tells our story best, but leaves out certain behind the scenes parts of our fairy tale story. I'll pick-up the story right before our much anticipated first face-to-face encounter. I had just finished dinner with my family at Margaritaville and decided to buy her a fresh flower Hawaiian lei, with the proceeds benefiting Jimmy Buffet's children's charity. My family and I left the restaurant and heading down towards Fremont Street to see the places in the original Strip that started it all , gambling and the world's biggest TV on their mind, intrigue and a beautiful young woman I was dying to meet on mine.

So we started our evening at Binion's but my family couldn't find a spot they felt was lucky, so we bounced around to the different casinos, the whole time trying to coordinate a meet and greet with her via text message. Finally they decided Binion's had a lucky feel to it after all, and my family unleashed a gambling fury on the gaming floor, but the youngest (me) had other pursuits in mind, my now, bride-to-be.

So I finally told her where I had landed and it just happened to be directly across from where she had parked her car, which happened to be the same exact place she parked for work. As I impatiently waited for her arrival or at least a blow off call, I saw in the distance the gorgeous young lady that would steal my heart later that evening walking my and smiling like she felt the exact way I had at that very moment, smitten and intrigued.

As the evening draw to a close, after an hour or two of "Slot Machine Serenades" of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Marry Had a Little Lamb" and what seemed like a lifetime of stories, we bid each other ado to a promise of breakfast on my last morning in Las Vegas. Text messages were constantly exchanged and leading up to the breakfast date but on my last night in town the texts had abruptly ended. Writing it off as nothing I went about walking around the strip by myself then to bed early in the morning expecting to get up and get breakfast with my now, bride-to-be as if my vacation would never end.

I made myself get out of bed that morning three hours after I actually went to bed and got ready nice and early for the impending breakfast date with my new found love interest only to not have my calls or texts returned.

So I wrote it off as her not being all that into me and reasoned with myself that she was 3,000 miles away and living in Sin City, it never would have amounted to much anyway. So I ate with my family at the best breakfast buffet I have ever had (the Bellagio) and got all my stuff ready to fly home.

At the airport I had the previous nights winnings in my pocket, not the ATM receipts from the prior nights losings, and I decided to treat myself to a treatment of aroma therapy at the airport. As I was sitting the enjoying chamomile and bubble gum scented oxygen I received a curious text from my now, bride-to-be saying she had been at the hospital all night with her friend without cellular service. So I told her I was getting on the plane and would call her when I got home. I did exactly that and I believe we talked for three hours that night, as if we had known each other for years, and that I can honestly say is when I fell head over heals for the love of my life, my incredible bride-to-be…