R and B bridge walk button



R&B / Our Story

We told the short version of our engagement story in the print invitations. This is the unabridged version:

Years ago B (of R&B) had been wandering around NYC and started to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. Halfway across it, B suddenly realized the beauty of the bridge, the cables drawing patterns above the city, the boardwalk down the center, the rich history, and the majestic stone towers. B decided he would wait to cross the bridge until he had found the love of his life. So he turned around and walked back the way he had come.

When R&B happened to be walking by the bridge a few years ago, B told R the story of his only time on the bridge. R loved that story.

The Jersey City Art Tour was B’s favorite two days of the year that he had never missed. In September of 2005, instead of going to the second day of the tour, B quoted to R, “the measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it” and he asked her to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with him. I’d love to, R said, knowing exactly what a trip to that bridge meant.

So R&B snuck past the crowds in downtown Jersey City and traveled to the bridge. They slowly moved through the crowds and when they reached the middle of the bridge, suddenly the crowd thinned and there was just R&B (and a couple others they didn’t notice at all). He turned to her and said, we’ve done everything together equally and I want this to be the same. She looked at him saying, I think I know the words. They asked each other, will you marry me? Yes, they answered. As they turned from the past to the other half of the bridge, an unknown future, a monarch butterfly sailed across their path. They skipped most of the way forward.

R&B explored Brooklyn and took a ferry back to the other side. They found the only open jewelry store in the area and bought rings for each other. Wandering hand in hand they explored a city filled with so many people, only aware of two, as they stepped into a sweet new year together.

- Rachel & Bill Rood


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