It’s about to get hella sappy up in here, you’ve been warned.
I’ll give you all a little bit of an introduction so you know why I am posting this story that I didn’t even write. Today is my two year wedding anniversary and nothing really captures our relationship better than this story that my husband wrote a couple years ago. He wrote this without me knowing and one day just asked if I had read his latest post. When I read it, I cried. It was so nice and I love reading it every once and awhile. So I figured today was a good day to share it with all of you! Hope you enjoy our love story.
We love movies. That’s why we all write here. That’s why you’re here reading this. But every once in a while, movies impact our lives more than just making us happy or scared or sad for a couple of hours. Every once in a while, they change your life.
Now, I know a lot of people say, “that movie changed my life,” and that statement is used pretty loosely. In some cases, sure, some dramatic movies can change someone’s life. But my situation is very different. A lot of people will choose very deep, very meaningful movies to call “life-changing.” The movie that changed my life however, is ‘Old School’.
That’s right! The outrageous and hilarious comedy starring Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell changed my life. I know you’re wondering how that’s possible, so here’s my story:
In 2008, I was a freshman in college. The school I went to was kind of a suitcase college and a lot of people went home for the weekend. One of the first few weekends of the year, I was left with nothing to do on a Friday night. So, I texted a friend from one of my classes. She invited me to join her and her friends to go to a school-organized bingo game. I know, I wasn’t excited about it either, but I went.
When I got there she introduced me to three of her friends. As you can expect, with five people who have known each other for all of a couple weeks sitting around a table, it was a bit awkward at first. But then the game started. The school provided prizes for the game, usually four or five mediocre prizes to choose from when you win. A gift card to the school bookstore, some random assorted snacks and a few DVD’s. One of those, was ‘Old School’.
Once they announced ‘Old School’ as a prize, without even thinking I said, “I love that movie.” Without hesitating, Jess, one of the girls I had just met said, “me too, I already have it though.” So the five of us started talking about the movie, while playing a rousing game of Bingo.
A few minutes later, Jess actually won the game. I didn’t think anything of it as she walked up to collect her prize. She had a few choices, but oddly enough, she chose ‘Old School’. Then she walked back to the table, placed the DVD in front of me and said, “here you go.” That simple gesture led to us hanging out a couple of times. That led to me going over to her room to watch a movie. And even though that movie was ‘Waiting’ (She almost lost me there haha), that led to a relationship.
That relationship became strong very quickly and with every passing day it became even stronger, all-the-while being helped along by other great movies.
We were there together when Carl Fredricksen lost Ellie.
We were there together when Mark Zuckerberg built “The Facebook” and when Billy Beane rebuilt the Oakland A’s.
We were there together when Andy let his toys go.
And we’ve been there together at midnight every time anything from Marvel comes out (Yeah, she’s a keeper).
Our love of movies brings us every year to our two favorite places in the world: Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. Those two places have become very special to us, even more so this year. In January, we visited the Magic Kingdom for her birthday. It rained for most of the day and that night, we were two of maybe a couple hundred people gathering around the castle to watch the nightly fireworks show, “Wishes.” There, I finally got my movie moment, something so surreal that it couldn’t possibly be real life. I asked Jess to marry me in front of Cinderella’s castle during “Wishes.” And fittingly enough, my wish came true.
What started with such a stupid and hilarious comedy and a simple gesture, eventually led to me finding the love of my life. Thanks to movies, we had the idea planted in our minds that we were meant to embark on all of our adventures together. How can you not be romantic about movies when they constantly volunteer themselves as a tribute to romanticism. They deserve at least 12 percent of the credit when it comes to the happiness in my life. Thanks to movies, right now everything is awesome, and I’ll never let it go.
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