I first met Annick when brother Liam made the unfortunate mistake of introducing his Navy friends to the family. I’ll never forget the pulled pork Norman made us or how striking Annick’s eyes were. This was the summer of 2018 and aside from some witty banter from Annick, our story takes a break here until the summer of 2019. I distinctly remember thinking how far out of my league she was and wrote off this encounter as the last time we would meet.

Fortunately for me, Annick and her brother decided the next summer to get matching tattoos in Victoria. To get these tattoo’s Annick took a week long trip to Victoria (I don’t know why recovery time?). That coincided with the worst beach day ever. I had organized a trip up island to Tube the Cow (read: float down the lazy Cowichan River) which I had not realized was closed at the time. In an effort to save the day, we went to a nearby beach that was rocks, not sand, and shaded by trees, so a little too chilly for beach weather in June.

Annick was a good sport about the failed day with only some mild teasing, and little did she know I love when women make fun of me. In keeping with the finest traditions of the Navy we decided to commiserate about the day back at the Crush Pad with a bottle of Krakken Rum. Annick put in a very solid effort of keeping up with us, but at this time in our lives we were professionals at drinking. I have always admired her ability to persevere (read stubbornness).

After a couple of drinks we went downtown to the local country bar, Dukes. I’m not sure who made this decision, and I haven’t been back to Dukes since, but the perfect combination of Country Music and Rum turned Annick into a dancing Queen, and I was the lucky partner (howdy).

The night passed and we went our separate ways. I was left with the challenging decision of formally hitting on my friend's sister. The jury was out for a long time on the ethics of pursuing Annick, but ultimately, I ruled in my favour, and if Liam Cole hadn’t wanted me as a Brother-in-law he wouldn’t have let Annick come to Victoria. Meeting once was innocent, meeting twice was fair game.

Coincidentally, Annick had also ruled in my favour and the next day texted me directly asking to come pick up her phone charger. From that innocuous Instagram message I knew I had a chance.

As the summer passed we continued to stay in touch. She mentioned coming out to Victoria again for a friend's soccer game later in August. I correctly assessed the soccer game was a ruse, and I was able to steal her away for the better part of the visit. This was what was to become known as our first date. A walk around Beacon Hill Park viewing fluffy chickens followed by a cocktail at Irish times. She had obviously done her research to impress me and ordered an Old Fashioned. Once I was satisfied that she could be trusted and was not an organ harvester we finally went back to my place to watch a movie.

During this time period I was awestruck by her beauty and intellect, the benefits of putting up with my haphazard and sometimes fruitless adventures was just a bonus. I knew she was out of my league and that led to a profound sense of confidence in me that only a man facing imminent failure could have. As the summer came to an end I expected so too would our brief fling. But I was pleasantly surprised that even after heading back to Guelph we continued to stay in touch. Finally, one night before going out with her girlfriends, Annick took the monumental step of locking me down (I am a catch). It was a sunny evening in Victoria and I was at Fiamoso’s with some friends grabbing pizza when out of the blue she asked to call. I took the phone call at the table (because I am rude) and we’ve been together ever since Sept 7th 2019.

I usually say it started on the worst beach day ever, during a short trip to Victoria to visit my brother. But the seed was planted 1 year before that, when a group of guys stopped in the Okanagan, with my brother, during their drive from Kingston, ON to Victoria, BC.

Because that was actually the first time I met Liam. “He’s cute”, I thought, “easy to smile and quick to laugh”. And then I thought “That’s nice, but oh well, I’ll never see him again”.

Cut to 1 year later, I’m flying out to Victoria for a weekend to get a tattoo of the mountains across the lake from my parents’ house in Naramata with my brother. A piece of home, now that we have moved away. He collects me from the Victoria airport saying we have plans with some of his friends. I didn’t think much of it, I knew many people from Penticton had moved out to Victoria, and his Navy buddies never crossed my mind. Who picks us up in a Honda Civic coupe, but Liam Moors.

After driving up island to unsuccessfully float down the Cowichan River, we moved nearby to what google promised was a beach. There was water, but a relaxing beach it was not. It was late enough in the day that the sun hid behind the trees, and we lay more on small rocks than on sand. So it was lovingly named “The worst beach day ever”. We all toughed it out and stuck around chatting. There was no doubt Liam and I were hitting it off in my mind, but where could we go from there? I was only going to be there for a weekend before returning home for the rest of summer, and then farther to Guelph, ON for university. The day turned into night, and the worst beach day turned into drinks at the Crush Pad and going out, where we continued to talk and dance at the one country bar in Victoria, that I am never going back to.

The next morning, I decided to message him on Instagram to get my charger back from the Crush Pad after breakfast with a friend (I really did need my charger back and I didn’t think we would see them again that weekend, even though Liam thinks this was all a ruse). We did, however, see each other again that weekend back at the Crush Pad for an evening of Chernobyl and pizza. I knew he was special when he brought the Costco sized Ranch bottle out of the fridge to dip his pizza. After the short weekend, I returned to the Okanagan, where we spent a summer messaging and, eventually, moved up to texting (big progress in a few months).

We managed to meet up two more times during the summer. Once more in Victoria, when I drove down for a girls trip to drop a friend off at UVic and watch another play a pre-season soccer game there. This is when we went on our first official date, which consisted of a drink at Irish Times, where I discovered that dairy free Baileys exists but costs more at restaurants and, more importantly, that Liam would most likely not kill me. We then went back to his place for a movie, where he realized that - having just moved in - he did not have a TV set up and his computer did not have speakers or bluetooth. Choosing to persevere, we decided on a relatively quiet movie (it may have been quiet, but sound was actually a large part of the movie), and played it off of a phone, connected to a speaker, for sound, and the movie playing on the computer screen. The video or sound would lag every once in a while, so we would have to pause both, match the times up perfectly, and press play at exactly the same time. Easy. We made it through the movie and I thought, we made it through this, we can make it through anything.

After a long weekend in the Okanagan, filled with wine, boats, and sun, it was time for me to return to Guelph. The conversation of our future together came up. He didn’t actually ask me out, but his intentions were clear. I mean, he asked to visit me during Thanksgiving weekend before we were actually dating - as I said, it was quite clear. After some deliberation on my part, I decided to take the leap. I was trying to call him one evening before going out with friends, but it was getting late in Ontario and he was just getting together with friends in British Columbia. I said screw it and called him anyways, asked him out, and then found out that he was sitting at a table with all of his friends.

The start of our relationship was full of stolen moments, short visits when either of us could manage, and many phone calls to fill the time in between. Drawn together by a love of camping, hiking, southern gulf islands, new foods, and a new love of phone calls, it has been a relationship full of adventure, love, and… lots of long distance.

Lots and lots of long distance later, (approximately 1095 days of long distance in fact), we are so excited to get married in front of all of you.