Anna and Andrew are lucky that Anna, 30, decided to reach out to Andrew first instead of waiting for him to message her. Andrew, 32, who had been on CatholicMatch on-and-off since 2008, had decided that he was only interested in looking at the profiles of people who were within a three-hour radius, so he would have missed out on Anna, who lived four hours away from him.
They both joined CatholicMatch because they were looking for someone who shared the same values. “Both of us had tried unsuccessfully to meet someone for several years. Because the Catholic faith is very important to both of us, CatholicMatch seemed like the right opportunity to look beyond our immediate communities to find someone we could share our faith with,” says the couple.
In December of 2013, Anna had only been on CatholicMatch for a little over a month when she first made contact with Andrew. She says she messaged him because she was drawn to his smile, she felt like they had a lot in common, and she liked the sense of humor she saw in his writing. “It’s kind of a running joke that it took him five days to send me a message back,” laughs Anna.
When Andrew finally viewed her profile, he says he felt like they were a good match. “I saw that we had similar views on faith and life, similar interests, and just the tone of her writing made it seem like we would be a good fit. Even though it took me five days to get back with her, it was the best decision of my life!”
The couple made the decision to move their relationship along slowly. “We didn’t meet in person for over four months! Neither of us wanted to scare the other one away by being too “forward.” In the four months before they met in person, they exchanged over 70 messages on CatholicMatch and had a few chat sessions before communicating through personal email addresses, and finally via phone. “It was the perfect way for us to get to know each other at a pace that worked for both of us.”
First Date and Long Distance
They met for the first time in April of 2014. For their first date, they found a place halfway between his home in Michigan and hers in Illinois to go to Palm Sunday Mass, lunch, and a movie. “It was the strangest feeling sitting across from this person I knew so well yet had never ‘met’ before,” says Anna.
For their second date a few weeks later, Anna was able to stay with one of her mom’s best friends, who lived a half hour from Andrew, for the weekend so that they could spend more time together.
“From that weekend on, I knew in my heart where this was going to lead. I just needed to let our relationship progress in the way it was meant to. It was like we had known each other forever,” says Anna.
Andrew also knew pretty early on that he and Anna would eventually marry: “It was so natural for me. Any other dating situation, I was so nervous or it felt like a struggle. With Anna, it was all so easy—so right. I knew I loved her before we met in person, and I was sure that all that needed to come after our first meeting were the pieces of the puzzle on my way to asking her to marry me.”
Over the following months, they continued to talk and text and Skype during the week and visit each other every weekend. The couple says the hardest hurdle in their relationship was the distance. “Only having a text or phone call when we wanted to be together during the week was tough and the four-hour trips on the weekends, although they became routine, were also difficult. By the time we got engaged, we were definitely ready to be living in the same place.”
Bonding Over Food and Sci-Fi
Anna and Andrew say that one of the main things they bonded over is food. “We both love to cook
and we both love to eat, especially dessert. After we were engaged, we met with the priest of my local church to take our 180 question compatibility test. One of the questions was “is food a problem in your relationship?” We both started laughing. Every time we eat a particularly delicious meal or are driving to Dairy Queen we jokingly say, ‘is food a problem in your relationship?’”
They also bond over television and film. “Anna loves theatre; I’m not as much of an aficionado but I think I got major points for mentioning I had seen her favorite filmed version of Halmet,” says Andrew. They also share a love of sci-fi franchises like Dr. Who and Star Trek. “From the beginning, we could pretty much talk for hours about anything: our families, our faith, movies, politics, you name it,” says Anna.
Proposal and A Family Wedding
On New Year’s Eve 2015, Andrew proposed to Anna on the Notre Dame campus. “One of our first dates had been walking around the campus. He took me there and proposed on a carriage ride outside the performing arts building.” Anna says she knew that a proposal was coming eventually, but she didn’t realize Andrew was going to propose on New Year’s Eve. “I usually ask a million questions and can sense when something is up, but somehow that day I had no idea what was coming. It was perfect. I even got a salted caramel brownie ala mode!”
They had originally planned on getting married on New Year’s Eve 2016, but after a few days of making plans they realized they didn’t want to wait that long. “We wanted our life together to start as soon as possible, so we changed the date to early September,” says Anna. They had a small, simple wedding that was centered around family. “We tried to create as many opportunities as possible for our families to get to know each other. Everyone got along great; we got to have a special moment with each person there.”
One way that they kept family at the center of their wedding was in Anna’s dress and accessories. “I wanted to be able to represent both of our families and carry on a few traditions. I wore my mother’s wedding dress, which was incredibly special, as well as the pearls my grandmother and mother both wore on their wedding days. My mother-in-law gave me her mother’s rosary, so I carried that with my flowers,” says Anna.
As they said earlier, food is very important to the couple, so they wanted to have amazing cake and cupcakes. “I think it’s safe to say ‘mission accomplished,’’ laughs the couple.
Marriage
Anna says that the best part of being married to Andrew is getting to share in the everyday things. “Living in different towns for the entire time we were dating and engaged, we were only able to really see each other on weekends. We love eating lunch together on a Wednesday and praying together in person rather than on the phone before we go to sleep.”
But they have also had to adjust to living together. “I was 30 and Andrew was 32 when we got married, so both of us had lived on our own and had pretty established routines. Just setting up our kitchen was like, “you’re putting the spoons where?” We heard a lot from other couples that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, and that is so true. We’ve done a lot of compromising. Mostly, I love knowing he is going to be there when I get home at night,” says Anna.
Continue Reading
