Each person writes down real memories from before the couple met. The two of them get a few a day, illustrated, in the weeks before the wedding.
Most couples know the years before from a few stories told at dinner.
The people who were there have the rest.
A sister, a roommate, a coach tells one night: where they were, who was there, and what somebody said. Nobody writes a toast.
Each memory is drawn, so one of them can see the other at fourteen, somewhere they never were together.
Each one starts a conversation the two of them haven’t had yet.
You know a story about one of them that the other has never heard. So do most of the people who knew them first.
— Eric
From the first one, a birthday
“My heart is so full right now, I’m bursting.”
— Shirin
“We were out on a walk when one arrived from her dad. She read it and her knees buckled. She’d had no idea it meant so much to him.”
— Eric
The night she owned the party
Before you came along, Alex threw a housewarming the summer we started our first jobs, in an Oakland backyard with string lights and one picnic table. By ten she was up on that table in a red dress, dancing to a song only she could hear. Someone yelled, “Is there even music?” and she yelled back, “There is now.” I thought, I want to be that free.
— Nina, Alex’s friend from her first job
A gray day in Maine
Before you came along, five of us drove up to Maine the spring after college, and it rained every single day. On the third day we pulled over by a lake, cold and grumpy, nobody talking. Alex got out, said, “Well, we can’t get any wetter,” and jumped in the biggest puddle. Ten seconds later all five of us were jumping and laughing in the rain.
— Priya, Alex’s college roommate
The plant
Before you came along, before she could even walk, Alex had a walker, chubby cheeks, and a plan. I was fifteen, and I found her in my mother’s living room licking the rubber plant, one leaf at a time, very pleased with herself. My sister said, “Alex, no!” and then we both burst out laughing.
— Jo, Alex’s aunt
We made these up to show the idea.
The first morning
A few land on both their phones every day in the weeks before the wedding.
Tell us about the two of them, then email the people who knew them first.
Each person picks one of the two and writes down times from before the couple met. Every one gets drawn.
A few moments land on both their phones every day in the weeks before the wedding.
Start a couple of months before the wedding. The first moments land a few weeks before it.
