THE BRIDE:

Name: Rhonda Michelle Lenard    Maiden name: Simpson

Born: Grand Rapids, MI. -- 08/25/1975

Prior Residence: Grand Rapids, MI.

SHE SAYS…

Every human being has a vision of what their soul mate would be like. We often visualize what type of personality they would possess, and most importantly how they would make you feel. As I was dating my husband, my Romeo became a reality.

I sit back and take a look at my perspective of our relationship and I can only define Joe as a modern day Don Juan. Joe has made me feel like I am the most important person in the world. From the littlest thing from opening car doors to the most important things like making me happy. It is important to Joe to know that I am happy. If I wasn't happy, he wouldn't be either. I love the fact that he is so intimate. He always wants to be close with me. He likes to hug and kiss and to just be around me all the time. The intensity of our love never dies and because of this makes our relationship much stronger.

That is a brief look at some of my feelings as a wife. Now I am going to go back in time to when we first met and that fateful night:

I was told the news, I consulted with a friend, and I didn't want to go. I was talked into going to an arena football game. Why would I want to go, I have never even heard of such a football team? My friend persuaded me to go so I went to my Aunt Cindy's house and got the free ticket. While I was there I asked a few questions about the person I would be in company with for the night. Such questions as what did he look like?, what is his personality like?, and is he single? I left my Aunts house not knowing much more than what I had before I got there. Nevertheless I left feeling a little more at ease with the situation.

As I arrived at the game, I felt my stomach tighten into a ball. I was very nervous about what type of situation I was getting myself into and having second doubts about even taking the ticket at all. As I went through the entrance to the arena I was met by an attendant to help me with my seat. He looked at the ticket and told me it was down all the way down at the bottom . I took a few more steps and gazed around the arena in the general vicinity of where I would be seated. At that moment I met eyes with a blonde haired man that possibly matched the description of the person I was supposed to meet. Sure enough as I walked down the aisle to my seat, my intuition was correct. When I first sat down I introduced myself. After that point, I didn't know what to talk about. My first impression of Joe was that I thought that he was very cute. The second thing I noticed was the ruby ring on his index finger. That was such an odd place to have a ring so I immediately thought that he was a homosexual. Some of his later actions further enhanced my thoughts. As the football game progressed I was feeling a little bit more comfortable. We started talking about music and we started playing a little game to try to guess the bands who sang the songs of the music that they played. At that point, I was impressed with his knowledge, and I was attracted to him, despite my doubts of his sexuality.

The football game ended and as we were walking out he invited me to go to Tinsel Town for a post game party. I was comfortable enough, so I said yes. I had never been to Tinsel Town before so I had to follow him there. When we got there we had a few drinks, and he went off to talk to the Sports talk guys from the radio station, that broadcast from Tinsel Town, about the game. He was gone for about 10-15 minutes. I started feeling uncomfortable again just sitting there by myself. Joe finally came back, we had a couple more drinks and then decided to leave. We were walking out to the cars and on the way I casually asked him if he wanted to ride around town. He said that he would.

I took him up to the lookout hill because he had never been there before. From there you can see the whole city of Grand Rapids. We stood up there for awhile and it started to sprinkle. I told him that we better get going, but he didn't want to go yet. So we were still standing there then someone opened the zipper in the clouds. It started pouring really hard. We started running as fast as we could back to the car. When we got in the car we were laughing our heads off at how soaked we got in such a little time.

To make a long story short we drove around for a while longer talking. I was bound and determined to find out if he was homosexual. To my liking I found out that he wasn't. He sparked my curiosity again when he made the statement that looks matter to him when dating somebody. At that point I wanted to know if I met his standards. So I probed some more questions. Eventually we ended up at the Hotel room where he was staying at. We watched the Wedding Singer because I didn't see it yet. After the movie there was an uncomfortable silence. Kind of like "what are we going to do next." I was exhausted from being up all day so I just laid down on the bed. At that point he leaned over me and was polite enough to ask me if he could kiss me. I accepted and he gave me this breathtaking kiss that I had chills running down my spine. We spent about another hour just kissing. I had to leave for work. I told him to call me. He still knows to this day how tickled to death I was that he called me back.

Ever since that night my life has never been the same. We made plans to go to Cedar Point, which is something I had wanted to do for about 4 years. So as our third date he made another one of my wishes come true. I knew that after that weekend, that I was probably going to marry him. I know that sounds rushed but I just knew. We also did some other special things while we were dating. Dinner for my birthday at the Renaissance Center, proposal at the Detroit Shock Game, and our picnics out in Fowlerville, just to name a few.

When Joe reads this now and 10 years from now I want him to know that you have added light to my life when I was in the dark. You made me a better person because you loved and believed in me. I want to thank him for putting laughter into my life and letting me be the type of person that I want to be. There are so many little things that Joe and I share in common, our insecurities (which we are going to laugh at when we get old, or at least when Joe gets old), our ability to laugh at ourselves as well as to laugh at each other. At the same time letting our differences show and not judging the other person based on them.

Joe and I have some sayings and I know ten years from now we aren't going to remember them so as I close, I would like to list a few so we can reminisce in the future, no matter what it holds.

"Don' t be doing dat" When Joe gets mad "Hey Lady"

"Get outta there" "My little princess"

"Your such a dork" "Baby doll"

"My goodness" "Your just so CUUUUUUTTTEEE"

And my all time favorite "No one can love you more than I do." That statement is true in the way that that is the way you make me feel every day, from now until the end of time.

The End