How did you meet?
Jana: My junior year of college in 2006, I decided to study abroad in Sydney, Australia. I chose to live with four Australian college students at a place called S.U.V. (Sydney University Village). One of those roommates was Andrew. When I first met him I thought, “What a sweet, very freshman guy.” He was really easy to talk to and we kind of hit it off and within a week or so we were dating.
Andrew: I first met Jana on our campus. And all the other roommates had kind of met her but didn’t know her name, so they asked me to find out her name. But after meeting her, I thought she was very pretty and very cute. And we got to know each other more and more from living with each other. We ended up dating and going out a few times. I was showing her the city, Sydney itself and also how our campus worked - where her classes would be and all that kind of stuff. We would go on dates at night, mostly to Thai restaurants. Our first official date was at a place called Thaitanic.
J: For our first date we went to a Thai restaurant on King’s Street in Sydney called Thaitanic and we had dinner. It kind of set the stage for our relationship with Thai being one of Andrew's favorite cuisines.
A: Looking back on it, what a perfect place to take someone for a relationship - We have to hope we’re not going to sink and die!
J: So that was our first official date because we’d been talking for a few weeks and then Andrew decided to take me out on an official dinner date. I want to say that was about 3 weeks into it.
We lived for that year in Sydney, and it was time for me to go back to the United States. It was really hard for me to leave this wonderful relationship. But then, Andrew and I found ways to go back and forth from Australia to the (United) States, and Andrew came and visited me for 3 months for my last year of college and then came back again for 6 months to study at the University of Arizona after I graduated, before ultimately moving to the (United) States in 2010 after 4 years of dating long distance. And thats when we moved in together officially, we weren’t just visiting and staying with each others families.
The Proposal
A: I’ll let Jana tell this one because she screwed it up.
J: I didn’t screw it up.
A: Didn’t you?
J: It’s not my fault you didn’t hide it.
OK, so at this time we were living in Boston. Just a few weeks before my 30th birthday, Andrew bought a ring that I had been eyeing and he took me out to a really lovely dinner. And on our way walking there he took me on the scenic route and under sparkly fairy lights on Comm Ave he asked me to marry him. On a park bench, it was very sweet. And he chose the ring that I had kind-of previewed and suggested, I was really excited about it.
Andrew never makes big plans for dinner, like a reservation and telling me to get dressed up and I thought, “that’s a little weird”. So I checked our bank statement and I saw he had made a large purchase. So I came home and was waiting for him and when he walked in the door I was like, “Yeeeeeeee!” I was super excited. And I didn’t let on that I might have known already.
A: It was so obvious.
J: He figured it out very quickly because I was acting like a little kid.
And then Andrew got mad saying “Why’d you check our bank account?!” And I said “Why didn’t you purchase it with a credit card to hide it from me?!”
A: Ok, but to be fair, I bought the ring at 6pm, I got home at 6:30pm and the dinner was only shortly after that. There was no time in-between that she was supposed to be checking this.
J: I was suspicious because he never made fancy dinner plans.
The Wedding
Our wedding day was in Tucson, Arizona, on the Memorial Day weekend of 2018. We were really lucky because the ceremony was outside and the weather ended up being perfect, which in Arizona was a little bit of a gamble. But nature was in our favor and we had 50-something of our good friends and family watch us get married. And I totally surprised myself by crying during our vows because I was sure that I would not. It was just a really fun party with everybody.
Advice to Newlyweds on maintaining a fun and happy marriage
Always be patient with each other. Always be kind. Never go to bed angry. Always be truthful. And respect the other person, respect is important.
~ Love Story told by Jana Azar and Andrew Methorst
Note: This Love Story is part of on ongoing curation in a series called Love Stories that details how couples met and their advice on how to create a long and happy marriage. Want to tell your love story and be a featured Love Story on Happy Little Vows? We'd love to hear it! Check out our HLV Instructions for more details.
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