the story of the rings (part 1)

Before I met Bree, I was on an island off of the coast of Brazil where I met a local artisan and struck up a deal. He had an old Brazilian coin with the face of Aphrodite on it, which he cut out and made into a pendant. I made a pledge then that the woman who would wear that pendant bearing the goddess of love would be the woman that I would marry, and we would one day return to that island.

how it happened...

It seems inevitable that we would meet and this would happen. For the past seven years, we have lived parallel lives, and for the same reasons.  We both started out as math teachers in high-poverty schools, Bree in Boston and Chris in Houston. Bree founded a high-performing charter school in New Orleans and Chris moved to Harlem to be a founding teacher at a high-performing charter school. We both spent a year traveling, and a year at Harvard for graduate school. When we finally met in Seattle, we couldn't stop talking. Somehow, we just knew.

On August 15, 2010, we got engaged on a bend in the Twisp River in the Methow Valley, Washington. On December 30, 2010, we'll get married on an uninhabited island offshore of Panama City, Florida in the presence of family.

Then, we will have three parties over the course of the next year so that we can celebrate with everyone. There will be a party in Panama City in February, one in New York City in June/July, and the finale in Washington State on August 20, 2011. 

Our goal is to be able to share this with as many people as we possibly can, so we hope that you will join us for at least one of the celebrations, where it's Crisp and Breezy all year long.

Love,
Bree and Chris