It was a September afternoon in 2011 as 26-year-old Olga anxiously awaited the arrival of military personnel coming home to Little Rock, Arkansas. She had driven from her home in Memphis where she works for the Social Security Administration to await the arrival of Chris, a 28-year-old Air Force officer that she’d met on CatholicMatch six months earlier. “I knew I was head over heels in love,” she recalled.
Chris & Olga’s initial contact on CatholicMatch had come in mid-March when they began an online chat. The chat and subsequent conversations went well enough that by the first days of April, he’d come to Tennessee for a visit.
Two weeks later he came back, and even though he was deployed to Kuwait, the bond forged was strong enough to see them through a four-month stint overseas.
Their use of Skype kept them in contact on a daily basis. “Then I started sending him cookies, bread and muffins in care packages,” Olga said. “He returned the favor, sending me beautiful flowers and letters.” The time spent apart may have happened early in their budding relationship, but it forged a strong bond.
Over the next few months they spent more time together, from a beach vacation to Florida to a trip to Rhode Island for the wedding of Chris’ sister—he is originally from the Northeast, with his military commitments having taken him south. “We both completely fell in love and were inseparable,” Olga told CatholicMatch.
The two-hour driving distance from Memphis to Little Rock proved manageable, as they saw each other every other weekend. Given how much both of them are open to new adventures, they made a perfectly complementary pair in all facets of life.
As they approached their one-year benchmark of being together, Chris began openly asking Olga what type of wedding she wanted, and they began making initial plans.
Even with the engagement all but a given she still described the proposal as “unforgettable”. Their two families met in Rhode Island this past April, where the wedding will be held.
Chris is currently on deployment in Afghanistan. Olga is moving forward with the wedding planning while he serves his country—or more accurately, while both serve their country, as military spouses live without their loved ones for months at a time. He comes home in the fall and they will be married in April 2013.
