Elizabeth

. . . was born & raised in Council Bluffs, Iowa and is currently a “stay at home” fiancé! She graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising and St. John’s University with a Masters of Science in Elementary Education. Elizabeth moved to New York in March 2001 to pursue a career in advertising, but after just a year decided it wasn’t for her. In June 2002 she became a New York Teaching Fellow and began her career as an elementary teacher in Brooklyn. Her first year she taught math to grades K-5 and this past year she had her own classroom of 18 kindergarteners! Elizabeth hopes to return to teaching in some form after the wedding. When Brian can get her nose out of a book, Elizabeth loves traveling, singing, playing the piano, taking in the cultural events of NYC and watching sports (Go Hawkeyes!)

Brian

. . . was born in the Philippines and raised in Ft. Collins, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming. He is currently a Senior Programmer with KBC Financial Products in Manhattan. Brian graduated from National University with his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, while stationed in San Diego, CA as a Marine. Brian is an adventurer at heart—he loves to run marathons (Elizabeth thinks he’s crazy!), climb rock walls without ropes and most recently fly on the trapeze! When he’s not conquering his latest adventure, he likes to play poker with the boys, figure out how to “make things work”, and reading. Oh, and did we mention eating ice cream? (He says eating ice cream is his motivation for running marathons—is there enough ice cream in the world to motivate anyone to run a marathon?!)

How we met

On August 10 , 2001, my roommate, Cheryl, invited me to a her friend Raul’s out in Astoria (Queens) to hang out with a few people, play games, watch movies, etc. After using every reason in the book not to go, Cheryl finally convinced me to “go for a little while”. Brian was also at the party. Since I didn’t know him, I didn’t spend much time talking to him until about 3 am when the few that remained (including me, who planned to “only stay for a little while”) moved outside to the front stoop. Raul brought his infamous “ice breaker” notebook out and began telling what everyone had written down on their way in the door (example: What is your favorite dessert?) It was then that Brian & I discovered our mutual love for God, cheesecake and Oogene. Yep, Oogene. He’s a purple puppet from a Christian children’s television series called “The Gospel Bill Show” Brian & I watched on TV and at our respective churches as kids in Iowa and Colorado. Oogene sparked many conversations throughout the rest of the night and over the last 3 years!

Our “Official” First Date

Shortly after Raul’s party, Brian invited Cheryl and I, along with a few others to his apartment in Jersey City for a Swedish themed dinner party (another of Brian’s favorite pastimes). At this party, Brian learned of my love for Beethoven and classical music. Enjoying classical music himself, he went out and got tickets to see the NY Philharmonic perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" at the Lincoln Center on October 23, 2001 (Yes, their wedding is exactly 3 years to the day of their first date—though neither one figured it out until about 3 months after they’d set the date!)

Brian came to my apartment and asked me in person if I would join him for the concert. I hesitantly agreed (not because I didn’t want to go, but because I was NERVOUS!) After much wavering back and forth in the month before the date (yes, he asked me out a month in advance!) Cheryl stepped in and gave me a thousand reasons NOT to back out—to go and enjoy it (Have we said “Thanks Cheryl” yet?!) Okay, so I didn’t back out and I agreed to meet Brian at the 63rd Street Steakhouse for dinner before the concert. When I arrived, Brian was standing outside with a bewildered look on his face. At first I thought, “Am I late?” and then “Why is he standing outside?” I finally understood when I saw the “closed” sign on the door. They had closed—for good—the day before! Needless to say, Brian was frustrated and irritated—after all, he’d had a reservation and finding someplace to eat without a reservation pre-concert can prove to be difficult in NYC! But we found a place and had a great time.

Well anyway, after a “rough start”—which wasn’t really so bad (just another adventure in the life of Brian Egge)—we enjoyed a wonderful concert and then went out for dessert at Café Mozart, a cute little place devoted to the composer.

So, that was our “official” first date, which we have learned to embrace as such. But, at the time neither of us claimed it—instead we talked, emailed and saw each other once or twice a week (beyond church) for the next year and a half (yep, although we spent most of their time together and despite what people said, we were NOT dating. We were JUST FRIENDS—albeit best friends, but still, “just friends”.) Eventually though, we both realized that God had a bigger and better plan for both of them that went beyond “just friends”. And the rest is HIStory.

The proposal

Over Elizabeth’s spring break in April 2004, she and Brian, along with both sets of their parents flew to Vancouver, British Columbia for a 5 day ski/outdoor adventure trip at Whistler/Blackcomb Ski Resort. The first afternoon, Brian surprised Elizabeth with a song he’d had composed by their friend, Eddy Bishai. It was a song all about Elizabeth. (click here to see the lyrics or to hear the song)

Two days later, on Monday, April 5, 2004 near the peak of Blackcomb Mountain on Crystal Traverse, Brian stole Elizabeth’s glove as she was reading a map (Brian was lost again!) and shouted “Chase me!” Irritated at being lost (okay, I was really hungry & had a horrible headache because about 30 minutes earlier I’d about knocked myself out on a 2x4 –Brian says he thought about proposing then because I was already crying, but fortunately thought better of it!) I looked at him and shouted “No!”

Brian tried to get me to play cat and mouse, rather unsuccessfully, so he finally stopped at the top of a small ridge. While standing there, he “tripped” and fell down the hill. I couldn’t stop laughing! He was just standing there and the next thing I knew, he was rolling down the hill (he says it was on purpose so he could see me laugh!) While I was laughing, Brian was begging me to come get my glove (I said I’d meet him at the bottom—there was an easier way down!). Then a nice man came up and asked me for directions in broken English. It took me less than a minute to give directions (if you don’t count the extra time it took because Brian was in the background *yelling* repeatedly, “Please, come get your glove. . . look, it’s right here, I promise I’ll give it to you! Please!” and I had to keep repeating the directions!) But according to Brian, I gave every possible direction down the mountain to this man for “like 5 minutes”.

Alas, I gave in and skied down to Brian after he put my glove on the snow and slid down a few feet to prove he’d let her take it. I had no idea what the heck was so important about me coming to get my glove, but figured “Oh, all right, whatever!” Well, I got there and reached down to get my glove and at the same time Brian was getting down on one knee—sorry, ski and started to ask me to marry him. But unfortunately I didn’t let him finish—or really even get started—before I lost my balance while bending down to pick up the glove and fell over sending both Brian and I tumbling down the mountain! Lucky for me, Brian is not deterred easily. He put himself back together, then scooted down to me and sat me upright (skis pointing uphill, thank you very much!).

Finally, he got down on one ski and asked me to marry him. (From this point on, I am retelling the story as I have heard Brian tell it so often—in my mind it is a complete blur and I only remember him asking, the incredible view of the entire mountain valley, and thinking “I love this man more than I ever thought it possible to love someone!” )

I sat, stunned, speechless and staring at Brian for about 20 seconds (I know, shocking, I was speechless), before whispering “yes” and then I sat for another 2 minutes before speaking again. And then I only said, “I did answer you right?” and went silent again. Finally he took my hand and said, “Um, do you want to try your ring on?” I didn’t even notice he’d pulled a ring out of his pocket—I couldn’t take my eyes off of him! (Lucky for Brian—well actually lucky for me—it was tied onto a string—which was tied to his belt loop, so when I knocked him over, he didn’t lose it in the snow! Such a smart man!) Of course I wanted to put it on! It was, and is, absolutely beautiful and perfect. Then I sat again for another few minutes in shell-shocked silence before throwing my arms around Brian, saying “I love you so much!” Too bad I knocked him over again and we rolled further down the hill! (Hey, at least he knows what he’s getting himself into!)

Amazingly, I managed to ski the rest of the day, despite my legs feeling like Jell-O. I didn’t cry when we were on the mountain (probably the first time in history that I didn’t cry), but when I crawled into bed that night, the flood gates opened! I didn’t sleep much—all I could think about was how excited I was to finally marry my best friend and know that God gave him to me!