Fradam

Roni Tropper and Allen Applbaum met at summer camp when they were both 15 years old. They had secret crushes on one another, but as luck would have it, he was dating someone else. Fast forward a few years: they found each other at the City University of New York in Queens, but again in relationships with other people. They stayed friends for a while but eventually lost touch.

Nearly twenty years after they first met, Allen found Roni again—this time on Facebook, where they were able to catch up and share memories of how Allen even helped teach Roni how to drive. And this time, they were both single!

Despite being on opposite sides of the country, they found a way to be together—Roni and Allen spoke every day and used Facebook to stay in touch. “It was like no time had passed, and we still had feelings for one another,” Roni said. Eventually, Allen moved from New York to Scottsdale, Arizona, and they are now engaged to be married.

Originally posted on the Facebook blog; hurray for wedding bells that are coming! I love stories like this. Pretty easy to make me happy isn’t it? The origin of where love blooms always interest me. It can be a peculiar thing to watch sometimes; when two people grow in a mutual admiration for each other, all wrapped up in those other emotions and feelings and whatnot. It’s something I’ve wondered from time to time.

What if one person grows in that emotion before the other?

Does the other one just get pulled along for the ride?

What if they didn’t want to come along?

Or what if the pull is what helps them discover the emotion was there all along?

Or what if they make an intellectual decision about the emotion, and justify it to themselves in hindsight claiming it was there all along?

Okay, so perhaps its not an equally growing feeling that seems to find balance in each other as it grows.

But does that even matter?

If people do love each other, does it matter how they got there?

Perhaps not, but I like the story all the same

It was a scorching morning. The mercury exceeded 40 in some parts of Sydney, and the prospect of a beach wedding in the afternoon seemed quite appealing providing there’d be a swim involved. I contemplated bringing an umbrella along to shield me from the sun. However, soaring temperatures are generally chased by storms, and yesterday’s wild weather was no different…

A memorable wedding. That is what David and Ula’s wedding will forever remain to me. It wasn’t that it rained. It was how it rained. The first drops landed as Ula first came into sight of the ceremony. A thunderclap signaled her first step onto the aisle. By the time she took her place, the little ceremony was awash with water. Words were indistinct from that point onward; Hannah, Tara, Claire and I huddled under a tiny umbrella and deduced the order of the ceremony by watching where the microphone went. It was possibly the shortest ceremony in history - topped only by Spaceball’s “short short version”; the celebrant was somewhat aware that the crowd was getting soaked. The key words did ring out however - “I now pronounce you..”. I wish I got to hear their vows though.. sniff.

Hannah, Claire and I went back to Claire’s place to dry off a little before the reception. Apparently the rain cloud had been centralised to the ceremony; two suburbs over was reasonably dry. Almost like Claire for the reception: she had a whole new outfit! Hannah blow-dried a lot of herself off. I tipped out the puddles that had formed in my shoes, and proceeded to blow-dry my socks and shoes for the next 20 minutes. After watching this process, Claire suggested borrowing a pair of her dad’s socks. Hannah followed this up by suggesting putting them in the dryer for a while. Sigh, why do all the best ideas come after my patient blow-dryer efforts! Thanks to Hannah for the photo:

The reception was close to home; North Curl Curl SLSC. Many memories of that beach.. and it was all round an awesome night. The speeches hit interesting notes - the father of the bride at one point questioning if the couple had done the right thing in deciding to get married, David speaking Polish and of course, a reference to that infamous party at Lena’s. So incredible seeing how far we’ve all come as people who were once little people.

All in all, a wonderful evening was had. I truly love weddings, and the fact that it rained in this one only served to highlight it in my memory of great moments of life. Yey for love!