Bruce and Alicia said that the clichés about God’s timing are true: They both found each other when he was 29
and she was 31, and only after they each joined CatholicMatch for the second time.
Bruce had tried CatholicMatch the year before, but he didn’t click with anyone. Alicia had made friends on CatholicMatch two years prior, but she found a boyfriend somewhere else. She had a difficult break-up with him, but at the beginning of 2012, around the same time Bruce decided to try again, Alicia signed up for CatholicMatch, one more time.
“If you feel that call to marriage, it’s very frustrating to wait as you see other friends get married. My parents were high school sweethearts and got married right out of college. I was hoping that would happen for me too, but that’s not what happened,” Alicia said.
They Didn't Want to Compromise Their Faith
They both chose CatholicMatch because they each wanted to find a spouse who shared their deep love for the Church. Both of them came from strong Catholic families, and it was hard to find faithful Catholics through the usual dating scene. “As you can imagine it’s kind of difficult to open up with this question at the bar: ‘Hey, are you Catholic?’” Bruce said with a chuckle.
This second try worked though! They found each other within a couple of months of rejoining CatholicMatch. Bruce had just moved from southern Louisiana to Houston,
so he decided to jump in with both feet and sent a large number of messages to different women whose profiles he liked. Alicia was one of the women who replied, and he found her message engaging.
He Missed Their First Date
They chatted for about a week, and then decided to meet for dinner. Unfortunately, Bruce, who is a chemical engineer for a petroleum company, had to cancel because he got stuck on an oil rig. He recalled, “My first phone call to her was not, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ It was: ‘I’m 200 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico. I swear that’s why I had to cancel our date!’” He called because he was worried that texting her would not convey how sincerely terrible he felt about cancelling. They rescheduled, and a week later they finally met face-to-face.
For their first date, Bruce and Alicia met at a French restaurant in Housto
n. Bruce wanted to have a lengthy dinner which included multiple wines, as this was a custom in his family. Alicia said, “His family does do these long dinners. You may not order the main course for an hour, which was very different from how I grew up.”
They eventually ate, but Alicia was honest with Bruce that next time she’d rather not wait so long for food. She laughed as she recalled the incident and said, "It was a good opportunity to practice communicating to one another!"
They did meet again, and eventually they went from meeting once a week to three times a week. “We were very compatible. They say you want to be equally yoked with your partner, so that you’re both pointing in the same direction. She and I definitely were that,” Bruce said. Alicia was a librarian, and her views and education were a perfect complement to Bruce’s. He continued, “We had intelligent conversations and spirited debates. We got off to a good start.” Alicia agreed, “We knew pretty immediately that there was a connection.”
A Proposal in New Orleans
By Nove
mber of 2012, after eight months of dating, Bruce and Alicia felt ready to get married. Bruce’s company held their Christmas party in New Orleans, and he decided it was the perfect time to ask Alicia to marry him. Although she hoped he would propose, she really wasn’t sure, so she went to New Orleans with nervous anticipation.
They had a nice dinner together and then saw some friends at the restaurant. Alicia tried to discreetly hold up her hand so that friends could see that Bruce hadn’t asked her to marry him yet. Unfortunately, one friend misunderstood and yelled, “Congratulations!” Bruce tried to play down the awkward moment as best as he could, and then he took Alicia on a horse-drawn carriage ride.
As the carriage carried them around the square, Bruce said to Alicia, “I took you out for a nice meal and a carriage ride because I have some really bad news: I was thinking about it, and I really don’t know if I want to spend Christmas with my girlfriend. I’d like to spend it with my fiancée.” Then he took out the engagement ring and asked her to marry him. She said, “Yes!” They went back to the restaurant to show all their friends, and everyone happily gave their congratulations.
Happily Ever After
Their large, traditional wedding was in July of 2013, with two priests co-celebrating: a friend of Bruce’s family and Alicia’s pastor. They held their reception at a hotel, with a wine theme for their decorations. Instead of having numbers on the tables, each table was named for one of their favorite restaurants. They went to the Houstonian Hotel for their wedding night, before going to St. Lucia for their honeymoon.
Bruce and Alicia were thrilled when she became pregnant just a month after they married. They were both open to life and had talked about children early in their relationship. Alicia decided to leave her career as a school librarian to stay home full-time to care for their children. Their daughter was born in May of 2014, and then in April of 2016, their second daughter was born!
Although she had to wait longer to marry than her parents did, Alicia loves the life she has. “Everyone’s story is different, and there is always hope,” she says. Bruce knew CatholicMatch was the right place to find Alicia.
He explains, “You go there to find a deeper, spiritual connection with your possible future wife. That’s what you go there for, and that’s what you’ll find there. That’s what I found there!”
They recommend CatholicMatch to others not just as a dating site, but as a Catholic social network, with tools and articles that are helpful beyond “just dating.” As they chase their toddler and snuggle their baby, their love for each other continues to grow stronger, and they are very pleased to have met on CatholicMatch.
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