Words From Our Couples
Love Stories
Bradie & Nick Haines
MARRIED SEPTEMBER 5, 2021
It was love at first sight! Nick and I met in a cafeteria at Fanshawe College, in 2013. We had been enrolled in the same program, and ended up sitting together in the cafeteria, after our professor didn’t show up for the first class. If our professor had showed up as planned, I don’t know that I would have had an excuse to sit next to the cute guy.
Samantha & Dylan Richardson
MARRIED SEPTEMBER 4, 2021
We met in 2008, at the beginning of grade nine. At the time, we shared mutual friends, but we didn’t have any classes together. When our friends introduced us, we instantly hit if off, quickly becoming high school sweethearts.
Kourtni & John Zalenko
MARRIED OCTOBER 5, 2019
We actually met on an online dating app (Tinder) in 2013. I thought John was good looking (obviously), and we ended up having a lot in common. Originally, I didn’t want to go – it was a blind date, and it would be the first time I had ever done anything like that. Thank goodness my best friend convinced me to go!
Jessica & Tim Dyck
MARRIED SEPTEMBER 14, 2019
Tim and I met in the summer of 2014, while we were students at the University of Waterloo. Many of our spring-term days were spent in the sunshine playing beach volleyball with friends, and Tim says that from the moment he saw me through the net he knew I was the one! I can’t say the same, but I certainly noticed him (tall, handsome, and good at volleyball!), and by the end of the summer, I worked up the courage to text him.
Jenn & Mike Tracy
MARRIED SEPTEMBER 14, 2019
When people ask me how I met my husband, I usually start with, “It’s a really romantic story…”, and then it quickly ends by telling them that we met and got engaged at a trailer park. Mike and I grew up together, spending each summer at a campground that both of our families camped at. High school summer love grew into more, and because we spent so much of our time at the park together, it was the perfect place for him to propose.
Amy & Blake Leontowicz
MARRIED JUNE 30, 2019
Blake and I met on Tinder, so we like to say that ours is a modern-day love story. But with or without Tinder, our paths were always meant to cross. On our first date, we realized that we only lived one street over from each other, and we couldn’t believe we never had met before! From then on, we were inseparable.
Julia & Jake Horsley
MARRIED MAY 24, 2019
Jake and I both grew up in Cambridge, knowing of each other through mutual friends. But our love story didn’t begin until I got my acceptance to the University of Guelph. I had reached out to Jake on Facebook with some questions about life at U of G, as he was already in his first year at the university. From then on, we started talking everyday, and he was such a great support for my big move to Guelph. Once I was settled into residence that first week, we met up and have been inseparable ever since!
Erica & Chris Hayes
MARRIED DECEMBER 31, 2018
Chris and I met in September of 2011, at the University of Guelph, where we were in the same department completing our graduate studies. It was the first day of orientation when we saw each other for the first time. Chris was sitting behind me and ‘accidentally’ flicked his pen at me – and would you believe, he still remembers what I was wearing that day! Luckily, our interactions continued, as we would see each other around campus and at various department events. Our friendship grew stronger in January of 2012, when we began running together.
Julia & Dan Van der Werf
MARRIED OCTOBER 20, 2018
Julia and I met at the University of Guelph, in graduate school, where we were both studying Psychology. The psychology grad students at Guelph had a strange affinity for hosting themed costume parties. Naturally, it did not take long for our paths to cross at several of these parties, with things culminating during a magical Halloween evening where I was dressed as a baby and her as a black swan (more like Natalie Portman, less like the water bird in Stratford).
Shauna & Tyler Rae
MARRIED OCTOBER 5, 2018
When you grow up in a small town like St. Marys, Ontario, you know of other people even if you don’t know them personally. That was Tyler and I. Even though we weren’t friends at the time, we were still connected at a young age through Tyler playing road hockey with my brother, and since his mom was my kindergarten teacher. In our final years of high school, Tyler and I had lockers in the same hallway at DCVI. For a while, he would just catch glances at me as I walked down the halls, but then one day his friend Louie messaged me on MSN to tell me that Tyler really liked me and suggested we hang out sometime.
Hayley & Patrick Johnston
MARRIED AUGUST 3, 2018
Patrick and I were never supposed to meet. We were from different cities, went to different universities, traveled in totally different circles, and up until the day we met, never knew we had any friends in common. Everything changed on Friday, October 3rd, 2014 when we were both guests at a wedding.
Julie & Brian Garel
MARRIED JUNE 30, 2018
Brian and I met almost 10 years ago on the first day of orientation, at the University of Waterloo. We were in the same orientation group, and aside from a few name games with the rest of the group, we didn’t officially meet until later in the day during a campus tour. Brian had broken his flip-flop during a really intense cheer-off earlier in the day, and was stuck at the back of the tour with one shoe. I felt bad (and also thought he was cute), so I walked slowly with him at the back of the group, and we chatted for the rest of the tour (not paying any attention to the actual tour!). Later that day (after getting lost on campus) I was talking to my friends about the cute boy I had met, and told them that I was pretty sure I had found my future husband!