As told by Craig Woods.

Brad woke up on a couch at the home of his friends Jeff and Alex. His recollections of Alex’s birthday party the night before were a tad fuzzy, but he was sure he had met a really cool girl. She had laughed at his jokes. Her lilting laugh and piercing brown eyes had definitely struck a chord within him.

He thought there had been at least a little interest on her part, though she had seemed less than mesmerized by the boat shoes and salmon-colored golf shorts he wore to the party. Not even the faded aqua camp shirt, or the fact that he stripped it off altogether during a particularly intense beer pong match, seemed to move the needle in his favor.

He also vaguely recalled that, perhaps more out of courtesy than attraction, she had offered him a lift to his apartment as the party wound down. She had to renege, however, when she discovered to her chagrin that a friend had mistakenly made off with her car keys. She ended up Uber-ing home by herself. He ended up on a couch in Bexley.

Still, Brad couldn’t get her out of his mind. He wanted to ask her out. There was only one problem. He had forgotten her name.

As the haze began to wear off, though, he remembered that he had asked her for her phone number. Too embarrassed to admit to her then that he didn’t remember her name, he had nimbly, but somewhat numbly, handed her his phone to type in the number in hopes that she would include her name as well.

He quickly retrieved his phone to see if she had fallen for it – or at least pretended to. He discovered to his delight that she had. Her name was Morgan. Her friends and family referred to her as Mo.

Brad texted Mo a couple days later. She agreed to meet him at Bakersfield, a Short North watering hole. Brad was nervous and recalls getting himself pumped up for the date by listening over and over again to “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” by Celine Dion. [Editor’s note: interesting choice, especially for a romance that was just getting started. Perhaps it sprang from Brad’s penchant for unique and rather animated karaoke performances, which didn’t become known to Morgan and her family until his unforgettable rendition of “I Touch Myself” at a family wedding a couple years later].

Even with Celine’s inspiration, though, the date could have gone better. Among other things, the weather was positively crappy. Hoping to win Mo’s heart with his sharp wit, as well as to show empathy for her having misplaced her car keys at the party, Brad led off the conversation with a story about losing his wallet. Mo pointedly reminded him that he told her the exact same tale at the party. It had been mildly amusing the first time around, but not so much a few days later.

Mo was less than smitten. The whole date lasted about 90 minutes. It culminated in a polite but not particularly passionate side hug.

Brad was both smitten and worried. He called Alex, who had been Morgan’s best friend since grade school. Alex encouraged Brad to hang in there. She also gently suggested that he refrain from telling the lost wallet story ever again.

Brad persevered. Mo eventually agreed to a second date. This time they arranged to meet at the Grandview Café, a bar and restaurant near Brad’s home. She made the reservation.

By now, Brad had managed to remember Mo’s first name, but he still had not gone to the trouble of learning her last name. As such, there was a wee bit of panic when he arrived at the restaurant before she did and was asked by the hostess for the name under which the reservation had been made.

Once Morgan had reminded Brad that her last name, though difficult to pronounce and spell, was “Woods”, Date No. 2 went a bit more smoothly. There were still a couple of bumps in the road, though.

Mo and Brad decided to team up in a trivia contest at the bar. At a particularly critical point in the game, however, Brad confidently corrected an answer Mo had given. To the surprise of absolutely no one but Brad, Mo’s answer had been the right one. Points were lost.

A couple scoops of Jeni’s ice cream after dinner smoothed out most of the hard feelings, but Brad had to promise never ever to second guess Mo's trivia answers ever again. Neither of them dreamed at the time that this promise would some day become a part of their wedding story.

When Mo dropped Brad off at his apartment that evening, Brad got out of the car, walked around to the driver-side window, and asked if he could kiss her. When he leaned in somewhat awkwardly to seal the deal, though, he completely missed her lips, resulting in what might charitably be described as a “nose kiss”.

No blood was shed, but the result was somewhat less passion-inducing than Brad had hoped. He walked away toward his apartment a little shaken. In what may have been an epic save, though, he stopped after a few steps, turned around, and went in for a re-do. Permission was granted, and the encore went a bit better.

So much so, it seems, that there was a third date, this time at a Columbus Clippers game. Despite the fact that Brad neglected to plan for dinner, and that post-game nachos at a nearby restaurant were historically bad, hints of real romance began to sprout. By September, Mo and Brad had become a “thing”. Not coincidentally, Brad had begun to improve upon his record of unforced errors.

Later that fall, Mo introduced Brad to her parents, albeit by accident. One evening when her father, Craig, and her stepmom, Carole, returned home early from an event, they encountered Mo, two of her sisters, and their respective boyfriends, including Brad, enjoying a few drinks. Mo, who had assumed that she and Brad would be off to their next gig before Craig and Carole got home, had not intended this to be Brad’s debut with the family.

As Craig barreled in through the back door, he almost bumped into Brad. The heretofore unidentified boyfriend smoothly and earnestly extended his right hand in greeting while cradling in his left hand an open IPA he had liberated from Craig’s beer fridge. Craig noted the “borrowed” IPA, but with some uncharacteristic restraint, chose not to press the point.

Mo’s first “official” introduction to Brad’s parents was even less auspicious. She and Brad made the drive up to the family farmstead in Attica on a foggy and frosty day after Christmas. Mo passed muster, managing to give acceptable answers to gentle questions at the dinner table about her life and her feelings for Brad. Nevertheless, she just wasn’t feeling well. She chalked it up to holiday fatigue. Upon returning home, however, she tested positive for COVID, which she had probably picked up at a holiday event before meeting the Millers.

It's hard to imagine anything better calculated to winning over the family of one’s significant other than to expose them in their own home to a potentially life-threatening virus. The good news is that everyone, including Mo, got through it all just fine. She was mortified, though.

Despite these misadventures, Mo and Brad stayed together. Brad moved in with Mo the following year, won the approval of her dog, Khaleesi, and came along on the Watkins-Woods family trip to Montana that summer. Craig eventually forgave Brad for his prior invasion of the beer fridge and even welcomed him back to it on multiple occasions. Carole put up a stocking for Brad during the ’22 holiday season, though per family custom, the name placed at the top of the stocking – on duct tape no less – was simply “Boyfriend”.

Early the next summer, Brad invited Craig to lunch. He asked for, and seemed a little surprised to receive, Craig’s encouragement to propose to Mo. Craig never even brought up the beer fridge thing.

A few weeks later, on July 14, 2023, Brad took Mo to Lindey’s for dinner. This time he made the reservation himself – in his own name, just in case. After dinner, they went home. Brad asked Mo to join him in the side yard (which was within range of their Ring camera). He got down on one knee, flashed a beautiful diamond ring, and asked Mo to be his wife. She immediately said yes. The happy couple proceeded from there to Parsons Brewing, right around the corner, where a number of close friends were waiting to celebrate their engagement.

A bit later, Mo and Brad hosted a gathering for the extended Miller and Watkins-Woods families. Much to the hosts’ relief, no one contracted any dangerous virus, and the families thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

Since then, Mo and Brad have moved from German Village, purchased a new house in Worthington, acquired a cat and a rescue dog, and are otherwise getting ready for their life together as a married couple. They very much look forward to celebrating their marriage with you at Jorgensen Farms in Westerville, Ohio on April 26, 2024.