You are cordially invited
to celebrate The Wedding of Chris Newton and Kate Koumantzelis on
at the Sheraton Hotel 39 Dalton St. Boston, MA 02199
*invitations to be sent soon
Our Story
Kate & I met in a somewhat conventional sense, at a bar, through mutual friends; yet nothing about this story is short of what you'd expect from these love-stricken kids. Chance meetings, food fights, missed opportunities, scheduling snafus, and the explosive food that ignited the passion. This tale is less of a love story and more of a page from an 80s romantic comedy playbook.
Newton's big day out
My best friend, Laura Kasek, and I had been planning to hang out for some time; but given our busy schedules it was exceptionally difficult to coordinate. Working almost 18 hours a day (I had two full-time jobs) didn't help the situation either. So sometime in August of 2007, when a Friday night became available, I grabbed my co-worker and friend, Courtenay, and drove down from Rancho Cucamonga to Hermosa Pier to meet up with Laura and a group of her girlfriends for a drink at a bar called Dragon.
When we arrived, Laura tried to hook me up with a friend of hers, Jasmine, as a potential date for me; she thought we had a lot in common (boy was she wrong, right Jas?). So I kindly obliged, when Jasmine and I met both of us immediately knew there was no interest. With that out of the way, we continued on with our night. Drinks were flowing and the bar was stuffed to the gils with women.
From across the bar…
Well as romantic comedies go, from across the bar, my eyes met with a girls; and my heart dropped. You know the feeling; when your heart starts to flutter and you get all nervous. Palms are sweaty, you try to talk but all that comes out is a squeak, like you were 13 years old again back in junior high talking to your first crush. So I mustered up whatever courage I could find and approached her, and we got to talking; turns out she was friends with Laura.
Throughout the night we talked, well as much as we could. Kate is what you'd say, a social butterfly, I call it nightlife ADD. It became increasingly difficult as the night continued and the drinks were flowing, to get her to sit in one place for long enough to get to know her. I'd try to convince Kate to sit down next to me in the booth. Of course, independent Kate had other plans.
The French fry food fight
She decided that it would be much more fun to throw french fries at me, starting a food fight amongst ourselves. Of course it elevated with Kate adding ketchup to the fries she threw at me. It had gotten pretty late considering Courtenay and I still had an hour drive home; so at 1am we decided to head out. Only Kate was no where to be found. Throughout the night, despite her restlessness, I'd thought all signs pointed this in the direction of a future date. Disappointed that I missed my opportunity, I grabbed Laura before they headed to the next bar and told her to get that girls number for me at any cost.
Redemption!
The next morning while I was at work, anxious to see if Laura accomplished her mission, I sent a text message to find out if she'd been able to procure Kate's phone number. Come to find out later they were all spending the night at the same house, just in different rooms. So Laura yells to the next room,
"Hey Kate?"
"Yeah", says Kate
"You remember my friend from the bar?"
"Yeah"
"Well he thought you were cute and wants to get your number."
"Okay, he was kind of cute. Give him my number"
When I almost blew my chance, again
Eager to start talking to her with the newly fetched number, I texted immediately. The conversation still had sparks even through SMS. We talked through text message pretty regularly from that point on, eventually elevating to nightly phone calls and instant message sessions. Well about a few weeks into talking, I asked her out for the first Friday night in September.
Well as fate would have it, our schedules kept conflicting and date after date was cancelled. It seemed as if our first date was never going to happen; and I feared that the sparks would die down before we even got a chance to go out. Fast forward 4 weeks later, to October 6th, and we finally have open schedules to meet up.
All throughout the day I texted Kate relaying how excited I was for our date. After over a month and half of first meeting, we were finally going on our first date. Now normally I didn't get this excited for a first date, but for some reason this one seemed different, almost special. Little did I know, that night would change my life.
On the other side of town, Kate was trying to find out what time I was picking her up, and what the general plans were for the night so she could get ready. Text after text she sent; asking me what time, where are we going, what should I wear? My brand new phone apparently decided it didn't want to receive the message; so I was oblivious to her inquiries. She grew frustrated and almost called off the date. Hours before the I left to pick her up, I finally received the frustrated text message and replied instantly with the information.
The flames from the Volcano roll ignite our date
Almost blew that one before it started. But hours later I was picking her up at her apartment, and we headed to dinner at Natalee Thai. The conversation, or as Kate describes it, the interrogation, started out very one-sided. Apparently I was asking too many questions for her taste and she continued to eat, avoiding question after question. As I started to think to myself, "man, this isn't going very well", the last part of our order, the Volcano roll, approached.
The Volcano roll at Natalee Thai is served on a plate surround by tin foil, with a plethora of sushi mixed with some sort of mayonnaise-based sauce and lit on fire. Probably the most ridiculous thing we'd ever seen. But it was the spark that we needed to light up the date. As we start eating into this thing, we couldn't help but laugh our asses off. And from that point on, the date and our future was looking upwards. We left Natalee Thai and drove down the street to Backstage, the local karaoke dive bar to continue our night. We talked and drank a few beers at the end of the bar, mocking the patrons attempting to sing whatever bad 80s & 90s songs the DJ could produce.
In this episode, I play the roll of Chipmunk
As the night wound down, it was time to drive Kate home. As we pulled up to her driveway, I realized that my breath had to be toxic, with all the sushi and beer I'd consumed. Reaching for a piece of gum, I desperately stuffed my face with gum, hoping she wouldn't notice. Of course, from her perspective it looked like a chipmunk stuffing his face with food for the long winter ahead. Shaking off the momentary embarrassment, I turned to her, leaned in and laid a kiss on her. High from the kiss and the nights events, she left my car and I drove home ending one of the greatest nights of my life.
From that night on, we continue to fill our lives with excitement, lots of laughs, great food and drinks, ridiculously silly events, food fights and much more. And after over 3 years, we continue to display the same passion and love for each other as we did on that first date.