Neil and Laura

Hello Beautiful People! We have our first entry in the wedding cake topper contest! This is actually from a couple who I recently made a set of cake toppers for, just before the contest launched. So you get to see photos of the finished toppers and hear about why they commissioned this special pair based on the sari fabric in the wedding attire. Here's the story of Laura and Neil:

Neil and Laura might have met over a decade ago when Neil was working in San Francisco and Laura was an undergraduate in the Bay Area. Their chance of meeting diminished briefly, however, when Neil moved to Paris to study French literature. They might have met again when both of them moved to the University of Michigan for graduate school. 

They took classes in the same buildings and volunteered as ushers for the same theater program, but still somehow failed to meet. They also could have met when they both attended the AIIS summer language program in India (Laura made the mistake of skipping the orientation in Delhi), or when they spent a year there doing research for their PhDs (once again Laura made the mistake of refusing to go to Delhi). 

They came even closer to meeting after returning to Michigan where they wrote their dissertations at different branches of the same coffee shop, worked out at the same gym, and lived within blocks of each other.

Neil moved to Pittsburgh in 2010 to start teaching, and Laura followed one year after. Laura moved into the same neighborhood as Neil. On campus, their offices are just minutes away from each other. They still failed to meet until Laura substituted for one of her colleagues in a seminar on the difficulties of French translation. 

As she sat down to deliver her comments she was introduced to Neil. She quickly realized that: 1- He was much more qualified to discuss the difficulties of translating gender in French and Hindi than she was, 2- this was a problem because she really wanted him to like her. Neil graciously forgave the flaws in Laura's talk and invited her to lunch the next week. They went to the theater together the following night and haven't spent a day without talking since then.

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Wow--that's an amazing story. Got one of your own to share?  If you want to enter to win a custom set of your very own, click here to read the full details on how to submit your story! Not getting married? No problem! I'm holding a special drawing for anyone to receive a $250 gift certificate to my Etsy shop for all cake topper referrals between now and May 31st, 2013! If you know anyone getting married who too shy to enter the story contest and in the market for custom cake toppers and , or even if they want to choose from the over 100 designs in my Etsy shopmy Etsy shop, have them drop your name and email address when they place their order before May 31st and I will put your name in the hopper for that gift certificate! No limit to how many people you can refer -- you'll get one entry per couple who orders by the deadline!