Our Story
Today we celebrate 11 years of marriage. 11 years!! I feel all over the place about that. On the one hand it feels like just yesterday that we were married in the Portland Oregon temple and then again it’s like we’ve always been together. I can’t imagine life any other way. I have never been a fan of people saying how hard marriage is. Marriage isn’t hard. It takes work for sure, and humility, and service and a bunch of other things but it’s not hard. It’s not hard to wake up every day and remind myself that what we felt is still there, and we chose each other for a reason. So here is our story.
Cade and I met while attending college at BYU-Idaho. Cade was a personal trainer, Abs that rock instructor and student athletic director. I was a personal trainer and pilates instructor. We were friends for the year before anything ever happened between us. I blame Cade but the truth is I also wasn’t ready for how I felt when I saw him. It made me incredibly nervous to think that if I dated him it would be it.
I moved off to Texas and then Chicago for the summer and then transferred to BYU in Utah. When I got to Utah I was kneeling down in prayer one night and felt strongly that I should pack up and head back to Idaho, just two days before school started. I got myself into an apartment, registered for school and didn’t even think about Cade.
I walked into Anatomy and Physiology that first morning and the professor asked if I wouldn’t mind switching to a different time because that class was so full. I did and when I showed up later that day guess who I’d been assigned with for lab? That’s right, Cade. But don’t worry, it still took a few weeks more for him to ask me out. And when he did, well I’ve felt guilty ever since.
You see, I was on a date and when the boy went back to his room to grab his coat Cade walked in to hang out with one of the other roommates, signaled to me to call him later, which being as humble as Cade is I honestly didn’t even think it was for a date, but liking him as much as I did, well I ended the date early and did just that.
Cade and I watched a movie that night and we’ve been together ever since. I don’t know that I believe there is only 1 person out there for everyone, but I do think that Cade was for me. He is the only one that could have cared for me and our family through my scary hyperemesis. 
You know what we have learned about marriage after all these years? It’s not about what we can do for each other, it’s not about romance or “love languages”, it’s about waking up every day and trying to be a little more true to your faith, to each other and to yourself. Giving your all, forgiving continually, assuming the good and doubting the bad, and most of all it’s about the other person. I loved Cade long ago and continue to love him today, in part because I allow myself to see him in the best light, never speak ill of him to others and I remember that long ago love. It was and is real.
We love hearing how couples met so leave us your story!
Michal Coombs
It’s the summer of 2000, and after one semester at BYU, I decide it’s not for me and I head back east. My mom is graduating from Penn State with her PhD and is moving from State College to Baltimore for a job. I decide to move with her and stay in Baltimore for a while. It ended up being a pretty rocky move for me, and at that point in my life I felt sort of lost.
So I thought it would be cool to write an email to a made-up email address, venting all my 20 year-old emotional problems. Side note: This was way-back when email and the Internet thing was just sort of starting. You’ve Got Mail just came out a year or so before that summer, so making up a random email address and writing a random email was sort of a romantic gesture, even though I fully expected the email to bounce right back to me saying the email domain did not exist. Well. A guy named Joel wrote back saying he’d pray for me. Haha.
Joel and I wrote back a forth a few times. He told me he lived in Minnesota {or Michigan?} and was starting his own church with his band and did I want to buy a CD? {I did} I told him life was getting better; I’d found a job and started a Medical Assistant program. And that was that. Life continued.
February of 2001 I decide I officially want to serve a mission for my Church. I can’t turn in my application papers to serve until April, but I’m positive I’m going, and I’m so, so excited about this decision. So even though it’s been a few months, I decide to email my old friend Joel to let him know what it means to serve a mission for the LDS Church, and why/how I decided to serve. I didn’t hear back from him for about a month.
During that month…
David was living in a tiny town in Northeastern CA. He ran into LDS members in this town and took the missionary discussions when he was 17, and was baptized a member. After graduating high school, the friend that baptized him went to school and David decided to stay home and work before serving a mission for the Church. David started working as a roofer, and would go away for a week at a time on a job.
This one particular week, they happened to be working a job in his hometown, and on this one particular day, he had time to go home for a lunch break. While at home, he decided to check his email. While he was on the computer, his friend at school happened to be in the school computer lab, and hacked through the security firewall and got on Instant Messenger and pinged David to get in a conversation. They talked for a bit, and then another friend from high school happened to be online and asked to join the conversation. While the three of them were IM-ing, this random guy named Joel kept pinging this other high school friend, asking to join the conversation. {To this day, no one knows how Joel asked to get in on the conversation, as IM is a closed forum and you have to know each other’s emails to start and enter a conversation…}
They all decide to let Joel in on the conversation, and Joel tells everyone about his band and sells some CDs. David bought a CD. In exchange, David told Joel he was LDS, and he was preparing to serve a mission, and what that meant to him, and how he decided to serve a mission, etc….
…So when Joel finally writes back to me, he says, “Oh, hey, I ran across another Mormon, and they’re preparing to serve a mission, too!” Preparing for a mission is a pretty exciting time, and you kind of want to talk to everyone who is going on a mission–where are you going, have you gotten your mission call yet, what are you nervous about, etc. etc. I thought it’d be fun to connect with someone in the same stage as me, so I asked Joel for this “other Mormon” ‘s email address.
Joel sent me David’s email address.
David and I started emailing at the end of March 2001. David left on his mission to Peoria, IL in July 2001 and I left on my mission to São Paulo Interlagos Brasil in September 2001. We wrote traditional letters our entire missions.
I got home April 2003 and David got home July 2003. He was starting at UVU (then UVSC) that August, and I invited him to come meet me before starting school. He flew out to DC for a long weekend. We both knew that weekend would be either a really good long weekend, or a really long long weekend. David almost didn’t catch the connecting flight, out of nerves. And it didn’t dawn on me until I was driving to the Dulles Airport baggage claim to pick him up that this could be really, really bad. This was before “Catfish” was a verb, but I still had visions of being duped by a serial killer for 2 1/2 years and this would be my final weekend on the face of the earth.
We saw each other in the baggage claim and it was love at first sight. Literally. For some reason neither of us remember, we never sent photos our entire missions, just letters. So even though we’d written for 2 1/2 years, and felt an emotional investment in each other, we’d never seen each other…in photo or in person.
It was a really good long weekend.
We dated for another year, and next month we are celebrating 12 years of marriage.
dennis jones
Happy anniversary to both of you. My wife and I are about to celebrate our 42nd anniversary. But how we met was pretty unusual. I was 16 years old and driving to a club meeting 15 miles from my home when I saw a station wagon come off the freeway run a stop sign and get back on the freeway going the same direction that they just got off but still going very slowly. I followed that station wagon onto the freeway anxiously waiting for to speed up or get out of my way. I didn’t have time to go out around it as I was getting off the freeway overpass and about 1 mile. So I had to wait behind the slow car. Finally the car past the overpass and I started to shoot through the opening to its right when all of a sudden it change lanes and cut me off. I literally had to drive on the shoulder of the road. After getting back on the roadway, I passed the car shut my fist and continued to my club meeting. 10 minutes later one of our club members walked in and said I’m checking in I’m late because I got lost getting here. I said we been meeting here for a long time how did you get lost. She explained that she was coming from the eye doctor instead of home couldn’t see very well and almost killed some poor guy on the freeway. I asked where this happened and was stunned when I realized that I was the guy she almost killed. But I probably wasn’t as cool as cade. Trying to assess whether she lived close enough to me to ask out, I asked what high school she went to. I got a bit of a dirty look and she said, we are in the same French class. After that it took me 10 months to get a first date. But it’s been a great 42 years!
Sweet Basil
lol!! That is wonderful!! I bet it was meant to be!
Robert Lippincott
I want to wish you both the very best and May God Continue to Bless Your Marriage. Remember that “Communication” is the Secret to all Relationships and when one side stops communicating things start falling apart.
God Bless You Both, with Big Hugs.
Sweet Basil
That is so true. And good communication at that!
Catriona-Grace (CG)
My husband and I met at the airport in Newark, NJ. We both worked for American Airlines. We were friends first and then in August of 1997 were married in Vail, CO on top of Eagle’s Nest. It was wonderful. Since then we lived in the Bay Area of San Francisco for 9 years and then moved to Florida. Our moves were work related but we could not imagine our life without each other.
Sweet Basil
Oh I love it!! You never know what will bring you together!