Our Story | Nick and Holly's Wedding

Holly and Nicolas

HOW WE MET

THE BEGINNING

Our love story began in the year 2008, when we first met at Renison, the residence we both lived in during our first year of undergrad at the University of Waterloo. However, while we lived in close spaces, the entire 8 months came and went with us being mere acquaintances and never really getting to know each other.

Fast forward 9 years to the spring of 2017 when, following the urging of Holly’s bestie Ashley (soon to be Maid of Honour), Holly was considering joining the popular dating site Match.com. Holly had never tried online dating before and felt hesitant, so decided to look through profiles of people in her area to decide whether or not it would be worth her time signing up. It was while looking through those profiles that she spotted Nick’s, immediately recognizing him as that cute guy she knew back in Renison. Holly remembered that she was friends with Nick on Facebook, so decided to reach out to him there to see if he would be interested in connecting. However, several days after seeing Nick’s profile and before reaching out to him, Holly learned that her mom had breast cancer and decided that the timing was not right, so never sent Nick a message.

Holly never forgot about Nick. He was often in the back of her mind and in the spring of 2019 Holly again decided to take a chance and reach out to Nick to see if he would be interested in connecting. Holly sent Nick a message, not knowing whether or not he was single or if he was still living in or around the Waterloo area. To say this message was a surprise for Nick would be an understatement, who had long ago cancelled his Match.com profile and was living in Edmonton. We believe the timing was fated, as Nick was headed back to Waterloo in two weeks to complete a school term for his Nano Engineering degree at the University of Waterloo.

We began exchanging messages everyday for two weeks and joked that we were writing a novel together, as our messages to each other quickly exceeded 1,000 words a day. Our connection was instant and we soon felt like old friends.

THE PROPOSAL

We fell in love quickly, and at the end of the summer, we spent two weeks at Nick's parents place in Ottawa. On August 26th, after spending a romantic, starry night on parliament hill and watching a beautiful light show together, Nick waited until the clock struck 11:11. Then he got down on one knee and asked Holly to marry him with his grandmother’s ring.

THE ELOPEMENT

What do you do when a global pandemic rains on your wedding plans? When it became clear that this pandemic thing was here to stay we made the difficult decision to postpone our wedding to 2021. Amongst the disappointment and sadness, all we wanted to do was say our vows and start our life together. So, we decided to elope with an intimate ceremony and plan our “Big” wedding for the following year with all our family and friends.

On September 17, 2020 - one day prior to what would have been our wedding day - we eloped at Soper Park in Cambridge. Present were Holly's parents, Nick's parents via Zoom, Holly grandma Ann and Nick's brother Connor. Ann and Connor served as witnesses. Following the ceremony we held an intimate dinner at the Ancaster Mill with immediate family.

We are excited to continue this story with our "Big" wedding celebration on September 17, 2021 with all of our family and friends on what will be our first wedding anniversary!