For those that haven't heard our story, we met in October of 2008 after my mom actually met Brad and told him he had to meet her daughter (I later found out she even sent him photos of me before we met.) I was very involved in Czech Heritage events around the state and he came to a Lincoln Czech Club meeting where my mom made it VERY obvious that she was trying to play match maker. She made sure there was an extra seat for Brad right next to me and later in the evening asked him to have his polka band play at the clubs Christmas party and then proceeded to ask him if they had a singer...because she knew someone that could sing with the band he just had to exchange phone numbers with her. Yupp, she volunteered me to try to get us to spend time together. We began to get together once a week to practice for the Christmas party and after we performed I asked him to teach me to play the accordion.
I had wanted to learn to play the accordion for many years and never had the opportunity. (I wanted to learn to do a little of everything when I was a kid so my parents has to set limits.) I caught on pretty quickly and we had a few lessons from January through March. In March I found out I would be crowned the Lincoln Czech-Slovak Queen and decided I would play accordion at my crowning for my talent. I also decided I would incorporate playing the accordion in my talent for the Nebraska pageant. We began to meet every week and just as my mom gave up on us dating, I began imagining it.
I was crowned the Nebraska Czech-Slovak Queen that June and a week later Brad asked me to go to Larry the Cable Guy at Memorial Stadium on the 4th of July. I couldn't figure out if it was a date because he had won the tickets from work and I didn't know if it would just be the two of us or if there would be others joining us. When we went and he asked if he could buy me anything, a drink, a shirt, etc. I knew it was a date and I was excited. We continued to go out to Czech events, fireworks displays, and eventually made it exclusive.
I competed for the title of Miss Czech-Slovak US in August of 2010 and was in complete shock when I was crowned at the end of the weekend. I had watched this pageant every year since I was born (the pageant began 2 months after I was born) and had always dreamed of being on that stage. I don't think I ever imagined being there and being crowned! Everything that had just happened was still soaking in when Brad came on stage. He had a microphone and asked everyone to give me a round of applause for a job well done. (At this point I was annoyed with him for stealing my moment in the spotlight.) He then said he was up there for another reason....proceeded with the mushy gushy stuff and then got on one knee in front of everyone and asked me to marry him. It took me a moment to process what had just happened and I finally said yes. I found out he had asked my dad's permission two evenings before, my mom's permission the morning before, and even my brothers permission the evening before. The video even made it to the local news and they played it the following evening!
My Crowning Moment
The Proposal
We planned our wedding for September 15, 2012. When we first started dating I realized our parents shared an anniversary and I may or may not have looked up the next time it was on a Saturday. :) This gave us a year to travel with my Miss Czech-Slovak US title and a year to plan a wedding. Things got a little more crazy in the year to plan our wedding as I tried to finish my degree (so I could complete things "the right way" in life) and Brad's dad passed away that spring. It all came together and we had My Big Fat Czech Wedding or as some of the attendants called it...the wedding of the century. We invited over 800 people and had a wedding party of 26. :)
The short and sweet version of this was written in the Czech Newspaper for Valentines Day in February. Czech it out:
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