Amber lived in suburbia in Connecticut and was an active member of her parish. But, it was a parish with almost no singles. “It was mostly married older couples and young families,” she said of her slim dating prospects. With this in mind, she felt there was little chance to bump into a good Catholic man on the street, and she was open to traveling for the right person who shared her faith. “It seemed like other dating sites, even if religion was a box to check, didn't focus on the same values as CatholicMatch,” Amber says.
Just a couple of months later, in January of 2020, she saw a handsome man named Brian on her screen.
She took a chance and messaged him first. She didn’t expect a reply, because he lived in New York City an hour away--and Brian didn’t have Connecticut in his search radius. So, she added in the note “love is worth traveling for” into her first message! Talk about bold!
Brian, for his part, had turned to CatholicMatch almost as a last resort.
“I thought online dating was too much like ‘shopping’ for a spouse,” he says, and he was looking for something much deeper than what he thought online dating could give him. But, much like Amber, he turned to CatholicMatch because he wanted to date in a pool of dedicated, practicing Catholics. “It was helpful to be able to see how a potential spouse viewed certain things from a Catholic perspective,” he says of the online profile system.
He’d been a member for a year and a half when Amber’s message came through. He was impressed by her profile and responded right away. Within a week, Brian took the reins and invited Amber on a date. Amber was relieved, because she wanted a traditional relationship where the man does the pursuing.
They chose to video chat first, because Amber wanted to be sure Brian was real.
“He seemed and sounded too good to be true!” she laughs. During their video chat, she noticed a row of packed bookshelves behind him, which made her think of her own wall of empty shelves in her living room. Serendipity? Brian was intrigued by Amber’s entrepreneur business, where she runs an online baby gear company. It was so different than his many exhausting years in college! They also shared their faith stories--Brian as a cradle Catholic, and Amber as a convert. After such a connection online and over video chat, they set up an in-person date that same week.
They had lunch together and then explored a sweet French cafe near Amber’s hometown. (Turns out, love really is worth traveling for!) Over tea and chocolate cake, they shared what they were looking for in a relationship, marriage, and a future family. Their second date was a movie, and the third was attending Mass together.
They both remember how on that third date, they both began to feel quite serious about pursuing a relationship together.
They had both waited a long time to meet someone with such strong faith. Brian, 43, had spent many years dedicated to his teaching career as a high school English and science teacher, as well as pursuing hobbies of acting on the side. Amber the entrepreneur and convert, was now 39. True love is not just worth traveling for, but it’s also worth waiting for!
The two continued dating frequently over the summer when they both happened to have birthdays. Great minds must think alike because without knowing what the other had planned, they both planned surprise parties for each other. Why? Neither had ever had a surprise party, or really much for birthday parties at all. So, separately, they both thought it would be the perfect gift in their new relationship! “Some of our close friends, whom we've met at church and were married a month before us, ended up helping out with organizing both parties without saying a word to us about the other one planned!” Brian remembers.
Seven months after meeting, Brain decided it was time to make their love official.
He asked Amber if she wanted to go on a beautiful September hike after work. He brought a paper bag which he claimed had some dessert for later. Once they reached the summit with a beautiful lake view, Brian produced a ring instead of dessert from the paper bag and proposed. Amber said yes as fast as she could, without even looking at the ring. “I wanted him to know that I was saying yes to him, not to a ring,” she explains. This detail meant a lot to Brian, because he had meticulously ordered four different ring samples, so Amber could pick one that suited her particular taste. In the end, Amber didn’t even want to look at the other samples, and just wanted the one he’d used to propose.
With the pandemic going on, and winter quickly approaching, the two opted for a quick six-week engagement. They married on October 3rd of 2020 at their local parish and had an outdoor reception with their closest family and friends. Having been married for a year now, the couple says the hardest parts of marriage were with some fertility struggles, which they are working to address in God’s timing.
“Also, dating during Covid and not having a normal relationship in a normal functioning world meant that our dating life was not necessarily indicative of what married life would be,” Brian explains.
Amber was a homebody and had never minded lockdowns, getting to spend all her free time one on one with Brian. He, however, is much more extroverted, so much of his life was put on hold during lockdowns. When the world came back to (mostly) normal after their wedding, they had quite a bit of adjusting to do!
But no amount of adjustment can overcome the joy of not having to find a parking spot 6 blocks away from your fiance’s apartment. Or, getting to wake up next to the love of your life. Or, planting a beautiful, huge garden in your backyard together. Or, hosting family get-togethers in your new home.
Brian and Amber know that firsthand, too!
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