The first question is always, "How did you guys meet?"
Jeremy and Liesl met while skiing in the Swiss Alps. Despite being an Olympiad skier, Jeremy ran Liesl down accidentally while trying to exit a ski lift. Liesl's skis snapped in half as a result, leaving her no means to get down the mountain. Gallantly, Jeremy raced down the moguls carrying Liesl piggy-back, her heart fluttering with every deft railslide and fluid 360 tail-grab. Back at the ski lodge, they promptly fell in love over a hot cup of cocoa.
Wait, sorry, I was thinking of someone else. Actually, they met at a roller derby where Liesl was auditioning and Jeremy was poaching girls for his upcoming production of Wagner's Ring Cycle on ice (all 16-odd hours of it; theatre patrons are advised to wear hat and mittens and bring 3 picnic meals). Impressed by his attempt at such operatic sacrilege, Liesl promptly accepted the role of Brunhilde to his Siegfried. Unfortunately, the show folded after he switched to a disco remix of the Redemption motif and the cast quit.
Still not convinced? Good, because they were really in Morocco at a circus bazaar where Liesl was making a living as a tap-dancing trapeze artist and Jeremy was training chimpanzees to be unicycling illusionist lion-tamers. (This was just a part-time gig for him to make ends meet while finishing his Ph.D. in asymptotic epistomlogy.) Bored with such an unchallenging life, he set his sights on the vastly more challenging feat of taming Liesl's wild heart. She was won over after their brief but memorable run as a side-show act where they were known as "Straight and Curly." To be sure of her true love for him, Jeremy proposed by blindfolding her and performing the death-defying knife toss, cleverly spelling out 'marry me' in knives just inches from her heart. In Arabic.
Wait, was that it? Maybe it was the day Jeremy was testing his friend Dave's theory that MySpace was not just a ridiculous social networking site for kids, but a ridiculous social networking site for adults. He'd become an amateur pilot while finishing his Ph.D., and was now looking for a partner for aerial adventures in his trusty old Cessna Cardinal. He typed "flying" into MySpace's search engine and found Liesl's profile, where she'd included a photo of herself during a flying lesson. Jeremy was immediately infatuated.
Email and dinners followed, and the two became fast friends. Two fast months later, wanting to have some fun (and, perhaps, to impress her), Jeremy secretly arranged a surprise trip to Ireland for her birthday. Liesl got him back a short time later by throwing him a fabulous, over-the-top surprise birthday party, secretly arranging for over 30 of his friends to wish him well as he started his 34th year. By this time they were dating officially, and soon became inseparable!
They went on all manner of aerial adventures. An impromptu weekend trip to Cannon Beach, an evening of July 4 fireworks viewed from above, whale-watching over the Haro Straight, an epic 3-day trek from Seattle to New York where they saw everything from the ridiculous (the Creation Museum, in Kentucky) to the sublime (sunrise over the Rocky Mountains, in Montana). But perhaps their most exciting trip in the Cardinal was to a secluded spot near the San Juan islands in late September, 2007. Liesl thought they were there for geocaching -- a high-tech global treasure-hunt game. Hacking their way through underbrush, led by a Global Positioning receiver, Liesl found the cache buried under a tree branch. It contained the standard fare: a plastic keychain, a pair of 3D goggles, a ... wait a minute! An engagement ring! She looked up to find Jeremy on one knee, and he asked her to marry him. He had secretly visited Liesl's parents that morning to ask their permission. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea!
On July 20, 2008 -- the second anniversary of their first date -- this story of courtship will end, and the story of their married life will begin. We hope you can join us!
Parts of this epic are illustrated in our photo album.