Seriously smitten: Couples recall their first meeting – from checkout lines to online chats

There are going to be a lot of marriage proposals floating through the air in a little over a week. Millions, in fact.

According to a report from American Express Spending and Saving Tracer, 6 million couples are likely to get engaged on Valentine’s Day. And think of all the proposals that are shot down.

So with this lovefest getting ready to take place across America, we asked local folks to tell us how they met – and eventually married – the loves of their lives.

Some couples met when they were in junior high or high school; one met poolside; one met online when online was all dial-up and slow, slow, slow; one met in a checkout line while he was trying to buy a purple dress. Yep, a purple dress.

Check it out

Renee Thomas, of Ooltewah, was working in Nashville in 1998, living right downtown on the Cumberland River, when she had to make a run to Wal-Mart in the Hermitage neighborhood because she needed a few things like hair color and pantyhose.

“When you lived downtown, there was no place to buy essentials,” she says. “Traffic was terrible, so I just turned off and went to Kmart.”

Fate must have been watching because Danny, now her husband, lived in Antioch, Tenn., where a brand-new Kmart had just opened, she says. But for some reason, he decided to go to the one in Hermitage this particular day. And, while Renee was in the checkout line, she “sensed him walk up behind me.”

“I had a basket full of stuff; he had a purple house dress,” she recalls. “I said, ‘You can go in front of me if you like.'”

“It’s OK. I’m not in a hurry,” he answered.

Then the flirting – intentional or not – began.

“I don’t think that’s going to fit you,” Thomas told him, nodding toward the dress. “He held it up to himself and said, ‘What about the color?'”

Uh-oh.

“Turned out, his mother had had a stroke and was bedridden, and he was headed to Ohio the next day for her birthday” and the dress was a present, she says.

“The line was long, we chatted, and when I was checked out I said, “Nice talking to you” and prepared to leave. He reached out and touched my arm and said, ‘Are you married?’ I said ‘No.’ ‘Have you had dinner?’ he said.”

Why no, she hadn’t, so for the next two hours, the two strangers began talking over dinner just across the street at Ruby Tuesday. Eleven months later, they were married. They will celebrate their 17th anniversary in December.

Messages of love

Rebecca Brock, of Ringgold, met her husband, Tody, in 1997 on AOL.

Back then – a time when online dating was seen as weird and risky – almost everyone used AOL as their Internet provider; basically, it was the only game in town. And AOL subscribers had personal profiles on their home pages that were searchable according to where you lived.

“I was sitting at my computer one night and got an instant message from someone commenting on how unique my daughter’s name was,” she recalls. “My daughter, that he was referring to, is Reagan. That’s not an uncommon name now, but it was at the time – enough for him to use it as an excuse to start a conversation with me anyway. We ended up chatting for hours at a time over the next few days and set up a date.

“Our first date went really well and, by October of the same year, we were engaged.”

Both had been married before, and both had children – a total of seven between them.

“My husband had three children, ages 12, 11, and 8, and I had four children, ages 11, 7 (twins) and 4. We were like the ‘Brady Bunch’ with an extra child and no Alice,” she says. “And I really, really needed an Alice.”

Despite the stress of blending families, the couple recently celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary.

“Between the horror of meeting someone on the Internet at that time and having seven children between us, I imagine our families had their doubts, but we just celebrated our anniversary and are as in love as ever,” she says. “Including in-laws and grandchildren, our family has now grown to 22 (expecting No. 23 in the spring). I feel like God brought us together, and I couldn’t be more thankful for my husband and our great big family.”

Hero worship

Kathie Fulgham met her husband, Scott, at a pool party.

“We were having a birthday cookout and pool party for my best friend’s husband in my backyard,” says Fulgham, of Chattanooga. “They lived in my garage apartment.

“Scooty (her husband’s nickname) brought his 4-year-old daughter. She couldn’t swim and was wearing inflatable swimmies. When she saw that the other kids were swimming without swimmies, she shed hers and jumped into the deep end of the pool. Fully clothed, Scooty jumped in and saved her life.

“A hero. I was impressed! He asked me out that night, and I said ‘yes.’ We’ve been together for 21 years.”

Tag, you’re it

Cindy Fuller Thomas of Chattanooga met her husband-to-be, Butch, at Wimpies Country Restaurant in Soddy-Daisy, where both of them used to grab breakfast or lunch. But for a while, he was afraid to approach her.

“I wore a signet ring, as I had been divorced for three years and felt funny without a ring. He thought I was married,” she says. “One morning in December, I went in for a sausage biscuit to go, and he was in line to get change for a newspaper. I was fooling with a toothpick holder and he realized it was a signet ring. [He] went out and got [my car] tag number, had my registration traced, called me and the rest is history.”

The couple have now been married 31 years.

“He is the beat of my heart,” she says.

Love of music

Coni Haley, formerly of Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., but now living in Knoxville, met her future husband, Butch, in 1969, at Lakeview High School, where she was a clarinetist in the school band. She already was familiar with the family name, having dated Butch’s cousin, Jack Haley, but she didn’t know Butch at all because he went to another school.

“Jack and I had one date in the winter of my junior year at Lakeview,” she says. “He was in a local garage band, and they sometimes used our band room at school to practice. They were there one night when I needed to grab my clarinet after an evening rehearsal. When I went in, Jack decided to introduce me to the guys I didn’t know. He pointed over to a dimly lit corner to a hunky shadow with a guitar and said, “That’s my cousin Butch! He goes to Rossville (High).”

The couple dated off and on, but became exclusive their senior year. Coni says music was a common passion of theirs. “We saw a lot of movies, but if music and dancing were available, that was our first choice.”

Butch still remembers the first night he laid eyes on Coni.

“That first night in the Lakeview band room, I was immediately attracted to Coni – can’t say it was her intelligence or personality – hard to judge across a large room. I remember, after she left, telling Jack that I thought she was really good-looking.

“I was initially physically attracted to her (like most guys were). It was only after I came to really know her, realize how truly intelligent, opinionated, caring, funny and ‘OCD,’ all those qualities that are Coni, that I came to love her. So I can’t say it was exactly love at first sight, though the attraction was definitely there. I think true love comes when you know each other, warts and all, and still want to spend the rest of your lives together.”

The Haleys will celebrate their 43rd anniversary in June.

Almost as cute as Donny

Janet Ramsey met her husband, Eddie, met when they were students at Northside Junior High School in Chattanooga.

Ramsey, of Chattanooga, remembers the first time she saw him.

“When I walked into class my first day of seventh grade at Northside, I saw him sitting in the front row and can still to this day tell you what he had on, down to his shoes. He was the most attractive boy I had ever seen next to Donny Osmond. We had the same homeroom and a few other classes, and our lockers were three apart.

“I was painfully ugly, and I was love struck, so I was pretty annoying,” she says, noting that she “stuffed” 22 Valentines into his locker that year.

“He avoided me because he was kind of shy, very athletic and played the sax in the band. He was busy,” she recalls.

But during the summer between seventh and eighth grades, something happened – to Janet.

“[Eddie] said I transformed into a butterfly, so much so that when he saw me the first day of eighth grade, he said he just thought, ‘Wow!’ We always had homeroom together because my last name was Pike and his was Ramsey. We became very good friends and then, on my 14th birthday, I had a boy/girl party and we started ‘going together’ exclusively from then on.

“I did try my hardest to get his attention that seventh-grade year,” she says. “We dated all through junior and high school at City High and married in 1980. Thirty-five years of marriage later, he still makes my heart flutter.”

Contact Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.