Turned out that he was with his sister, and she was with her cousin.
“We saw each other every day of the cruise,” Julianne recalls of meeting Kyle four years ago. “He was hanging out with his sister during the day; I thought he was (going) with her. I was with my cousin, so he thought I was dating
“It was my first cruise. It was my whole family. We went for my grandparents’ 50th. It was a big group. … His whole family was there, too.”
It was New Year’s Eve before Julianne and Kyle found a chance to chat privately. When they did, they found out that they lived relatively close to one another. She was from Elkhart, and he was going to school in western Michigan.
“I kind of just went up to her and approached her,” Kyle says. “I noticed she was alone for the first time in the week. I was, too.”
Julianne recalls, “I said, ‘Is that your girlfriend?’ He said it was his sister. We realized we were both single.”
Kyle adds, “The rest kind of took off from there when we realized we were from the same spot. We exchanged numbers.”
Julianne says they spoke on the phone as soon as they returned home. The calls continued on a regular basis before their first date about three weeks later.
The date was built around a western Michigan club hockey game in which Kyle played. Julianne went to the game and ended up keeping the score.
“We’ve been together ever since,” says Julianne, who worked the hockey scoreboard and time clock for two seasons.
After college, Kyle worked in Detroit for three years, and he and Julianne commuted back and forth, maintaining a long-distance relationship. Then came an opportunity for him to interview for a job with a recreational vehicle firm in Elkhart.
Kyle got the job and moved to Elkhart last summer. They still don’t see each other a lot, though.
Julianne, a senior nursing major at Saint Mary’s College, says, “It’s been nice because he is so much closer. He lives closer, but he’s been traveling a lot for work.”
The couple became engaged last year on April 22, after a nice dinner celebrating her 21st birthday. They will marry July 22 at Holy Cross Catholic Church in South Bend.
Kyle is arranging the honeymoon — part surprise, part reprise of the time when they met. “I think it’s going to be a cruise … I just don’t know to where,” Julianne says.
Taking a honeymoon cruise probably would please her grandparents, who enjoy the connection between their golden anniversary and the impending marriage.
“They love that they were such a big part of it,” Julianne says.
GENE STOWE, South Bend Tribune Correspondent
