When Chantelle and I were teenagers, we were involved in different competitive swim clubs. She was from one in Sherwood Park and I swam with one in Edmonton. Inevitably we met at a swim meet, well, we didn’t actually “meet meet” but rather Chantelle saw my dashing good looks and got her friend on her team who knew of me at the time to give her my name so she could message me on Facebook, as one does at 14. After that first message, we continued to text and then finally met face to face at the next swim meet.

Chantelle and I like to call this story the “first date-not-date”. After talking for a while and having met a few times at various swim meets she asked me out to the movies to watch Green Hornet with her and some other swim friends that I knew, a group date if you will. In the queue to purchase the tickets, her friends were ahead of us and neither her nor I noticed that they got tickets to a different movie. As we got our tickets for Green Hornet and got snacks we starting walking to our theater number to then only notice that her friends were headed in the other direction saying they are seeing a different movie. This left Chantelle and I all alone as we took our seats beside each other and wondering “what the hell do I say”. We clicked after finding out that we had a lot in common. If you were wondering, no I did not hold her hand during the movie cause my hands were so sweaty due to my nerves, I mean give me a break, I was 15 and just got blindsided thinking there were supposed to be more people involved. We finished the movie and had our parents pick us with an awkward hug goodbye.

Our actual first date was just as imperfect. I asked her over to my house to watch The Lion King in my basement when all of a sudden 20 minutes into the movie my parents came downstairs to kick us out. You see, our house was up for sale and the potential buyers (who turned out to actually buy the house, I like to think Chantelle was our lucky charm), wanted to view the house. So my parents and my sister, who had only briefly met Chantelle, took us to Red Robbins. Poor Chantelle wasn’t expecting dinner, yet alone quality family time! She was the first and only girl I ever brought home, so I guess she made quite the impression.

Almost the entire summer of 2018 I (Logan), was working in Fort McMurray and therefore, not spending much time back in Edmonton with Chantelle. I knew I wanted to marry Chantelle for a long time but I didn’t feel it was fair to her to propose and then peace out the next day back to Fort McMurray. As the gentlemen I am, I waited until I was finally home for the winter. At the time, my parents were heavily into “Downton Abbey” which is a posh Netflix show so I decided to tell Chantelle that they wanted to have a high tea style lunch with us. I assumed she was thinking that this was a very odd invite but it was perfect to get her to dress up and to make for a surprise. The spot I wanted to take Chantelle was the first place we both said “I love you” to each other long ago which is near my parent’s house. It’s a super special place because it’s where our relationship took off. In the background, I lined it up to get her parents to come over to my parent’s house so we could celebrate right after.

Family means very much to both of us and I wanted to share our celebration with them. I even took things a step further by planning to have two of my buddies stakeout near the spot in the bushes to get a genuine reaction photo because Chantelle has always talked about how cute those videos and pictures are. So we get to my parent’s place, where at this point I’m nervous and anxious, and then tell her when we first get there that we should go on a walk (which keep in mind is about 5-10 minutes away and it’s kind of cold out). This request took her aback and I could start to see her wheels turning that something wasn’t right. She finally gave in and took my hand for a walk. About halfway to the spot I start reminiscing about our relationship and she starts giggling and giving me a look like “I know exactly what’s going on”. There was no way I could have played it off so I just smiled back at her as we continued. When we got to the spot her smile was ear to ear as I held both her hands and told her some lovely dovely things and then quickly got down on one knee and presented the ring I chose for her (obviously taking into account what she has hinted towards for a long time). And just like that she said yes (shocker), we hugged, and then departed back home.

Totally forgetting my two buddies were in the bushes, I got a call from one of them telling me that the photos weren’t good and they totally messed up. Side note we were all out drinking the night before so they were beyond hungover. So Chantelle and I headed back to the spot and to take some redo photos which were way better then what they originally took. They then gave us a ride back as we laughed about the whole situation. If you’re still reading this, this is where things get hilarious. We get back to my parents and we walk in to her dad saying “hey Chantelle” and her reply was “oh hi dad” like she knew the whole time her parents were going to be there which had everyone in the room confused. Took 3 seconds for her to realize and finally ask “what are you guys doing here?” To this day I still think she was still processing the decision she made hahaha. Anyways we had a marvellous feast with champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries enjoying the moment with both families. It didn’t go exactly according to my plan but it turned out the be absolutely perfect.