GET HUBBIED

A couple, Renee Arnold and Ryan Joyce, who applied online and can't be in the flesh to be interviewed, therefore their written voices suffice to tell their story:

I am 27 and Ryan is 29. We met in 2002 at California State University, San Bernardino, when Ryan was my secret admirer. Some of his fraternity brothers found out he had a crush on me and they got together with one of my sorority sisters to send clues. They'd ask questions like, "if you had to choose between A.C. Slater and Zack Morris, who would you pick?" I picked Slater and they said it would never work! It made me realize it was not one of the Latino guys in the fraternity, it was one of the White guys! After a few weeks of getting questions and clues, I had it narrowed down to Ryan and his best friend Dennis, and I got him to confess when he returned a movie he borrowed for his art of film class. We just celebrated seven years together in December when Ryan finally proposed! Ryan is a regional manager for AT&T in Washington, DC, and I'm between jobs, trying to figure out how to use my education for something meaningful until we start a family and I become a granola-baking home-schooling Mom.

I knew I would be with Ryan forever very early in our relationship, before we were even officially a couple. We were having a conversation in our student government office and suddenly everything around us disappeared. I just saw him across from me, carrying on a conversation, and I stopped hearing him. Instead, I heard a voice in my head say, "this is it, he's the one, you're going to be with him for the rest of your life." I heard that voice and knew I couldn't argue it. A feeling of warmth washed over me that has been with me ever since. I have wanted to be married to Ryan since I graduated from college in 2005. My family has a history of bad examples of marriage. In fact, my Dad just got his eighth divorce, my Mom has been divorced three times, and I have three siblings who each have different Moms. Ryan and I began talking about marriage when we realized we wanted children together and wanted to provide them with the stable roots I didn't have as a child. Ryan jokes he was absolutely certain he wanted to marry me on the day he proposed, because I shared my bread with him at dinner. Apparently, being able to share really good bread with him even though I really wanted to keep it for myself was proof that I would be willing to share every part of my life with him.

My younger sister's friend Katie's ceremony left a big imprint on me because it was the first I had seen where the officiant asked the friends and family to support them in their marriage. I think this stuck with me because a wedding and a marriage are really about bringing friends and family together to celebrate. Ryan, however, isn't such a huge fan of the ceremony aspect of a wedding, he just wants us to be married and for our friends and family to have a great time celebrating with us at the reception. His favorite part is the reception if the food is good, the ambiance is fun, the DJ is on top of his or her game, and everyone is having a good time. I think the best time he had at a wedding was at his fraternity brother Denis' reception where we were surrounded by friends and there was an open bar, the staff cleaning the tables was kind of slow so we had a huge ring of beer bottles and wine glasses surrounding the centerpiece. Our new decor inspired a word of the day: "ambiance"! Every time anyone said "ambiance" we all cheered like on "Pee-wee's Playhouse". We danced a little and hung out in the courtyard while the boys all smoked cigars. It was a really fun reception.

Neither of us are religious but we would want to incorporate the African American broom jumping ceremony on our way back down the aisle in honor of my African American half.

Ryan has grown up surrounded by art. His mom, Susan Joyce, is a curator and she actually recommended this project to us. Art has become a big part of my life as well as a result of being with Ryan. I've always been curious in learning new things and seeing the world in new ways, and having someone else interpret our day for us would be an amazing new experience for us and our guests. It would be a truly memorable way for us to begin the next chapter of our life together.