Our Story
In Nicole's Words | In Danny's Words | In Melanie's Words
It is important to note that at the beginning of this story, I was living in Ohio, and Nicole and Danny both lived in Utah.
Back in 2008, Nicole and Danny went on one date (see Nicole’s version of the story for more details). My understanding is that afterwards, Nicole thought, “Well, I’m not interested, but maybe I can pawn him off on Melanie!” However, she kept this thought to herself.
She then said to me one day, many moons later, “There’s this guy I know, and he writes novels, and I’m reading/editing one for him.” How cool! “Ask him if I can read it, too!” I exclaimed. Little did I know I was aiding her conniving plans.
So she asked Danny if I could read his book also. At first he really hedged around, saying he didn’t like to have too many people read his books, because that meant less people to buy and read them after publication. Of course, they need good editing to even make it to publication, so his reasoning was a bit faulty.
But then Danny wrote an email to me, sounding very positive about my interest in reading his book. Once I promised not to steal his writing and publish it myself, he emailed me his novel, “Guardian’s Tale,” and I got to work. I found that although Danny is a very gifted writer, spelling and grammar are not his strong points. He was definitely in need of a good editor. He’s lucky he found me!
One thing Danny didn’t know at the time, is that at this point, Nicole and I were sharing all his emails with each other. So we basically had a three-way communication going, but he was in the dark about it. He didn’t know that when he wrote to one of us he was basically writing to both of us, because we’d either forward it to each other or read it over the phone. :)
As I worked on his book, Danny & I emailed back and forth. At first the emails were just about his writing, but as we got to know each other a bit better, they got more personal. I began to feel I could trust him, and our emails got to be quite frequent! I would get up in the morning and immediately check my computer for emails, because he often wrote me after I went to bed (there’s a two hour time change between Utah and Ohio). Sometimes I would wait until after work to reply, but other times I wrote up a response before I left for work. Then when he got up to get ready for work, sometimes he would reply, which I would find after work, so I could reply again, hoping he’d write me yet again later that night. Anyway, that’s a long, jumbled way to say we were sending multiple emails a day, which was getting to be quite fun.
Eventually, I no longer shared all of Danny’s emails with Nicole, but I did of course keep her updated on the gist of the relationship. As you can see in her version of the story, she was already planning how to get Danny and I together. Then one day Nicole spilled the beans to Mom. She told Mom about this guy that I was emailing out in Utah, and how she thought I should marry him. Mom immediately offered to pay for half an airplane ticket for me to fly out to Utah to meet him. Remember this was based solely on an email relationship and my sister’s strong opinion that we needed to meet, and eventually marry. I think Mom was worried I’d never get married, so she jumped at the chance of the possibility of a guy prospect for me, even though he was across the country. Then when Mom told Dad the story about this guy, before Mom even mentioned a plane ticket, Dad said, “I’ll pay for a ticket for her to fly out and meet him!” Mom said she’d already offered to pay half, so he said he’d pay the other half then. When I first found this out, I thought, “Whatever. They’re grasping at straws.” I then dismissed the idea.
However, as I started to think about it more, I began to realize what a good opportunity this could be. I mean, I’d been wanting to go out to visit friends in Utah, so why not take advantage of a free plane ticket? I could hang out with Nicole, getting some good sister bonding time. I hadn’t been out to Utah in four or five years, and decided August would be a good time – after my class ended, and before Nicole’s started. So, I booked an airplane ticket, on Mom and Dad, figuring it would be easy to meet the stipulation of getting together with Danny.
Now, you must understand that Nicole and I had been joking about me marrying Danny for a long time. When they met for lunch once, I said to Nicole, “Now wait a minute – how come YOU get to go to lunch with MY fiancé?” Her answer? “Proximity.” Remember, at this point in time, Danny and I were still just emailing each other. I hadn’t even talked to him on the phone.
Then I had to figure out how to work out meeting him while on my trip. Right after I booked my ticket, I mentioned to Danny (by email) that I was going to be in Utah to visit friends and family in August. My plan was to bring it up again as my trip got closer. I figured I could smoothly work it out for us to meet, using some suave line such as, “So, are you interested in meeting your email editor?”
I was definitely interested in finding out if there might be anything between Danny and I, but I didn’t know if he just considered this a business author/editor relationship or if he might consider the possibility of a personal relationship.
As my trip got close, I again mentioned it to Danny, expressing excitement, since I had not been in Utah in a long time. I figured I would work up to actually asking if he wanted to meet, but it ended up I didn’t have to worry about that. He asked me if I’d like to go to dinner. I had just finished editing “Guardian’s Tale,” and he wanted to give me his new book that I was going to read. I of course agreed, and made sure to plan our dinner early on in my eight-day trip, just in case we wanted to get together again while I was out there. So I was flying in on a Friday night, and we set up dinner for the following Monday. (I had suggested Saturday, but he said something about a ward campout.)
Right before I left for my trip, Danny emailed me two very significant things: 1) he had decided not to go on the campout (with the excuse of bad weather and it being crowded), and 2) he offered to buy me a laptop.
Just hearing it that way, it sounds pretty far-fetched. However, there is some background/history regarding the laptop. Previously, I had bragged to Danny about installing more RAM on my computer. I was quite proud of this, and wanted to impress him with my amazing capabilities. When he asked the specs of my computer and found out it was five years old, I think he was secretly appalled that I worked on such an ancient machine, and amazed that something from the Dark Ages was still functioning. So he made comments on how nice new computers are. I made comments back about not having the money to buy a new computer, but it was nice of him to offer to buy me one for my birthday. From then on, it was the joke that he would buy me a laptop for my birthday. I of course knew this would not happen. Remember I had neither talked to nor met him at this point.
When I finished “Guardian’s Tale” and was ready for Danny’s new book, I started teasing him that he could give me the file of his new book on a brand spanking new laptop, again not seriously expecting anything.
Back to the email he sent the day before my trip, when he offered to buy me a laptop. He said that he would buy me a laptop as an advance payment for my editing work on his new book. His thought was that if it was a paying job, then he could bug me about working on it more and getting it done in a more timely manner. (He wasn’t very thrilled with the seven months it took me to complete my feedback on “Guardian’s Tale.”) He also figured a laptop would help facilitate the work on the new book, because I wouldn’t be tied to my desktop. Also, he wanted to get the laptop at the beginning of my trip, so if I had down time while Nicole was working, I could go ahead and get started on the new book. (I nick-named his new book “Purple Cow,” because it didn’t have a name, and I didn’t know what it was about yet so I couldn’t make any intelligent suggestions.)
So, I debated about the laptop, not sure how I felt about the whole thing. I called Nicole up and read her the email, and asked for her opinion. She thought, why not? He was simply offering to pay for my time, and the form of payment happened to be a laptop. I debated about it, and agreed to meet up with him first thing on Saturday, though I was still undecided if I was going to take him up on the laptop deal.
Saturday morning, I got all ready to meet “my fiancé” with whom I had as yet never even spoken. I had decided to get a haircut before my trip, which ended up being a disastrous one. I was going to get it fixed before our dinner on Monday, but when we changed our first meeting to Saturday, I no longer had time to get my hair re-cut before meeting Danny. So, I did my best to style it, even though it was a terrible cut. Luckily, Danny thought it was just “Saturday hair,” as in I didn’t really care what it looked like.
Danny showed up at my sister’s apartment to pick me up, and I finally met him! I told him I wasn’t sold on the laptop yet, but we could go to Best Buy so he could finish convincing me. As we were standing in front of the laptops, I was still a little wishy-washy. Danny diplomatically told me it made no difference to him whether or not I took him up on the offer, and he didn’t want to push if I wasn’t comfortable with it. Of course, he said this with the tempting laptops right in front of me. I finally decided this was something I didn’t want to turn down. Thus, an hour after we met, he bought me a fancy, brand-spanking-new laptop. Wow. Now he knows the best way to a woman’s heart.
So, that was not only the first time we met, but also our first “date.” What a first date! I got a laptop! Then, just because we got together on Saturday, that didn’t mean we couldn’t still keep our Monday dinner date! We watched “Horton Hears a Who” and ordered in dinner for our second date. At the end of that evening, as Danny was dropping me off at my sister’s apartment, he asked if I had any other nights free while I was in Utah. I told him that the next night, Tuesday, my sister and I and some friends were going out to dinner with my parents, who were in town from Ohio to see family. He didn’t even pause to think and consider, and said he’d pick me up for it. So on our third date, he met my parents. That was also the night we first started talking about marriage in a hypothetical/general way.
Then Danny told me that his dad was in town on business (up from St. George) and wanted to meet me, so he was wondering if he could take us out to dinner on Thursday. (Wednesday wasn’t an option, because I was at a family reunion that night.) I said that would be okay. Danny then told me that we might be in trouble – because his mom, upon hearing that his dad was going to get to meet me, was not about to be left out! She jumped in the car the next day and drove the 4 hours up to Sandy (although she was so excited, we speculate that it might not have taken her the full four hours). So dinner with Danny’s dad turned into meeting both of his parents. So this was date number four – and when we arrived at the restaurant, there was more than just Danny’s parents there. Danny had forgotten to mention that they’d invited his brother, Paul, and Paul’s little boy Jonathan to join us as well. Talk about a little overwhelming! Danny’s mom greeted me with a big hug – you would have thought we were already engaged or something! I hid behind Danny at dinner and didn’t talk much. We all hung out for a bit after dinner and played cards, and I felt a little more comfortable and got to know his family a little bit. I tried to get them to tell me the dirt on Danny, and why he wasn’t married yet, but they just kept telling me what a great guy he is. So either he really is great and amazing, or they don’t want to scare me away before the wedding. I prefer to believe the former.
To continue the report on our speed dating week, on Friday we went to Comedy Sports down in Provo, then ate at IHOP. Saturday we just hung out, then he drove me to the airport on Sunday.
Then on Monday, the day after I returned to Ohio, I received some roses from a sweet boy in Utah! That’s the first time I’ve gotten flowers from a guy!
On date number four, when I had met Danny’s parents, they immediately invited me to join the family for some plays they were going to be seeing towards the end of September down in St George. So after I returned to Ohio, Danny and I made plans for me to visit Utah again in five weeks to see “Annie” and “Aida” with his family. But we quickly realized that was too long to go without seeing each other! So Danny decided to visit Ohio! So to recap: in August I went to Utah and met Danny. At the beginning of September, Danny planned a trip to Ohio. At the end of September, I planned to go to the plays with his family. Then we started talking about me moving to Utah in October. But the time apart seemed like a REEEAAAALLLLLYYYYY long time. We didn’t want to wait until October to live in the same state! So I gave my two weeks notice at work (it wasn’t quite two weeks…but they were supportive of my plans) and started looking for a place to live in Utah. We were basically unofficially engaged at this point.
Danny flew to Ohio the second week of September as planned, my parents came down and helped us load up my stuff in a U-Haul trailer (to store at my parents’ house), and Danny and I drove across the country – Danny’s first big road trip! It’s much nicer to take a road trip with your honey than it was growing up with my brothers.
The first day we drove to a city near Nauvoo, where we planned to stay for a few days and see the church history sights. After we checked into our hotel (which was an adventure, because they only had us booked for one room, instead of two! It took calling Travelocity to straighten it out), it was late, I was tired, but I could tell Danny really wanted to drive into Nauvoo. So we drove on over. While there, we stopped by the temple, which was all lit up, and began to stroll around the grounds. We hadn’t made it very far when Danny, who couldn’t wait a moment longer, asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes!
We probably would have gotten officially engaged earlier, but it would have been lame for Danny to ask over the phone. We hadn’t had the chance to go ring shopping yet, because we had been in different states. We had looked online a bit, but I didn’t want Danny to buy something without me. So he gave me a Prairie Diamond instead.
(What is a Prairie Diamond? According to legend, a young pioneer woman in Nauvoo had three suitors ask for her hand. She told them that whichever one of them brought her a diamond ring could marry her. The first two men gave up easily, but the third was more determined. What he came up with was a horseshoe nail bent around into a ring. The head of the nail has diamond shapes on it, so he used it as his engagement ring. Those have become known as Prairie Diamonds.)
We continued on our trip, made it out to Utah, and madly started planning a wedding! At one point we had thought about getting married after the New Year, then started thinking about December, but they both sounded so far away – so we decided on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. (It also happens to be the day of the BYU v. U of U football game. That’s the first thing people remind us of when we tell them we are getting married on November 28!) (But Danny has said he’s not going to watch any of the game, because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself, knowing he watched football on his wedding day.)
So, one of Danny’s roommates asked the other day about us dating – but we kind of skipped the dating part of the relationship! We emailed for seven months, then had a speed dating week, which pretty much led right into engagement. So I guess that brings us up to present day! I spend my time during the day looking for a job, working in the yard, planning a wedding, and snuggling with the doggies. As for the evenings….they’re reserved for someone special.
And just in case you’re wondering, I haven’t followed through with my editing of Danny’s new book (“Purple Cow”) at all. I’m miserably behind, and haven’t had any time to work on it since my trip. Oops. So technically Danny could reclaim my laptop, but he’s far too nice for that. :)