Meeting my husband was the last thing on my mind during a girl’s night at a Blake Shelton concert at DTE Energy Music Theater. Earlier on that hot June day in 2010, I went fishing with my Dad to celebrate Father’s Day. This was something fun that we loved to do and would soon be something that Jeffrey loved to do with my Dad too. Back to getting ready. I got on my favorite dark denim jeans and floral crop tank top with my perfectly broke in cowboy boots. My Mom was helping me perfect my look as she usually would do when I was headed out. I was waiting on the girls to show up to my house and then we would meet the rest there. Terha, Whitney and Stephanie showed up, we took the obligatory group picture and then we were on our way.
We made it to Clarkston and met up with the rest of the group. Our two vows for the night were to use the buddy system and no boys. This was a girls night after all! We got our drinks poured, music on in the car and we hung out in the parking lot before going in to the concert. About 15 minutes in, a girl came over and said we looked fun and that she wanted to start a block party so come over to their truck a row over. Whitney, being the outgoing, party-girl she was, headed over as fast as she could. As her buddy, I was forced to follow her. Needless to say, I was not very happy. We all eventually ended up at the tailgate of a Chevy truck owned by our future best man of our wedding, Kyle Schaenzer. Sitting on that tailgate was a handsome sandy blonde guy, Jeffrey. Whitney parked it next to him and asked if they had some Captain Morgan rum that she was promised earlier. His response was ‘Only if you get that pretty blonde to come over here.’ As Whitney states, On cue, you saunter over in your daisy dukes.’ Jeff hands Whitney the Captain Morgan from the cooler and we start chatting. This backstory was only later revealed to me. I was pretty unpleasant company for about half of the night since one of our two rules had been broken and I was really looking forward to a night with my best girls.
I tried to give up my attitude and chatted with our new friends. We all headed into the concert and set up camp on the hill altogether. We danced the night away and found out more about the guys. Jeff was a police officer at the time. My cousin, Stephanie, was completely enamored with this and had so many questions for him as the night progressed. One of the fun facts, and probably a pick up line to see me again, was that they could get free vouchers for future concerts. I hate to admit it but in the moment, that sold me and I uncharacteristically put my phone number in his phone.
The concert ended and it didn’t take him very long to text me. For the longest time, my name in his phone was ‘Daisy,’ a nod to my attire for that night. From then on, our friendship grew and our two groups of friends hung out all summer long. To this day, we still hang out frequently, Adren and Kyle were the best men in our wedding, Terha was the maid of honor, Adren and Terha are the Godparents of our son Liam, Lisa is the Godmother to our son Lucas and the others are still important parts of our lives. I love looking back on this night and seeing where it went and how it has ended up for us so far. Meeting my best friend and husband is certainly one of my fondest memories.
