The Lovettes ~ Meet Rosie and Tom

Happy Friday readers! I’m incredibly excited about sharing Rosie’s first post with you today. I’m a loyal devotee of her personal blog, A Rosie Outlook, and what she has written for Love My Dress is of the same high standard. So, make yourself a cuppa, get comfy and lose yourself in the heart-warming tale of how she met her Tom…

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment that mine and Tom’s story began.  Though the very short version is that we ‘met through work’, there were a series of events that led up to that moment that I must admit I do rather love to regale.  Though I’ve never been one to entirely believe in fate, I still feel that there was something rather serendipitous about our story, and I hope I can do it justice now.

My first knowledge of Tom was when I spotted his photograph in an article about raising money for charity in our monthly staff newsletter.  I must admit to raising an inquisitive eyebrow at the presence of such brooding good looks in an organisation with an otherwise rather ageing demographic!  At that time I was based at our headquarters as a Press Officer for our organisation (we work in emergency response), and Tom was working in an Operations Room so our paths had not yet crossed.

I felt a little flutter of excitement late one night when an incident at his station meant that he answered the phone and had to give me a briefing on what had happened – to use a clichéd term, in those few minutes on the phone it just felt like we ‘clicked’; sharing jokes and easy conversation.  Having now put a voice to a rather attractive face I couldn’t help but feel hopeful for further contact, but working in two different locations an hour apart in very different areas of the business, it seemed unlikely that we would ever meet.

A few months later a friend at work mentioned the idea of putting ourselves forward for a sail training event being organised – she had yachting qualifications and would volunteer to be First Mate, and I could nominate myself to be part of the ‘beginner’ crew.  It sounded like fun; a few days on board a sailing boat, gaining a yachting qualification and generally experiencing something that was very new to me.  I also elected to write a blog for our intranet about my experiences of being a newbie sailor and experiencing life bobbing around in the Solent.  I can’t pretend that I wasn’t nervous, and turning up to our pre-sailing-meeting and encountering people who were much more experienced than me (having never set foot on a boat of any kind before) made me question whether putting myself forward had been quite the ‘great idea’ I had initially thought.

Imagine my trepidation then, when my friend, and our allotted ‘First Mate’ was deemed unable to go a few days before the event due to a medical condition.  If I’m honest, I wanted to pull out, but being the stubborn person I am, I was determined that I would ‘throw caution to the wind’ and at least give it a try.

Have you guessed where this story is going?  Behind the scenes, unbeknownst to me, there was much last minute canvassing and convincing of people with Skipper qualifications, and a man with brooding good looks and excellent telephone manner quietly stepped in to replace my friend.  I arrived at the Marina on that Sunday evening to join with the rest of the crew, and seeing Tom sat at our crew table introducing himself to the rest of our team, I couldn’t help but feel a rush of excitement.

I remember standing on the periphery of the horde of people gathered in the Sailing Club; the swarm of sailing jackets, polo shirts and deck shoes, and feeling that sense that things were about to change.  I can’t say for sure that I knew then that I was about to meet the man I would marry, but I can say that we both felt that crackle of electricity, that quiet confirmation that the steps we’d taken to get to that point had been in the right direction.  (Three years later, Tom would get the coordinates of that same marina tattooed on his arm to mark the place where we first met).

And so it was – if I didn’t know immediately I certainly knew within those few days on board our boat that Tom was unlike anyone I’d met before and that our connection was unlike anything I’d experienced.  When he left the boat a day early due to a prior commitment, I felt obsolete and desperately sad.  We’d exchanged suggestions of meeting up but both treading carefully, had made no firm plans – the thought that I might not see him again was almost unbearable.

Of course in this digital age it was easy to re-connect after the sailing challenge ended, and under the guise of having to collect some equipment, he popped into his workplace before his next shift and sent me an email, which turned into texting, which turned into a date, which turned into inseparability whenever his shifts and the distance would allow.  Within the year we had bought a house together halfway between our respective workplaces, and gave up those many months of journeys back and forth and four-day separations due to our differing working arrangements.

I feel so lucky to have shared so many amazing moments in our relationship so far – spending several weeks journeying around France in Tom’s campervan, buying our first home, getting our little dog Bodhi, and spending innumerable blissful weekends walking by the seaside and in the forest.  It was very fitting to me that Tom’s proposal came whilst we were staying in a yurt in Wales, with me gripping a mug of peppermint tea I’d made on the stove, a fire roaring away in the corner and Bodhi snoozing on a sheepskin rug.  It felt like the perfect reflection of all of the things we love; the simple pleasures in life (and of course that fluffy dog of ours wagging his tail in recognition that something rather exciting had just happened!).

Our vision for our wedding is the same – simple, rustic but fun and a real reflection of us as a couple.  I can’t wait to tell you all about our ideas and plans, and I am so, so excited to be able to share them with you on Love My Dress and join the other lovely Lovettes in talking all things wedding planning!

Rosie

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