My fiancé Chris and I met through one of my best friends, Amanda. He was a security guard at the nightclub where she worked as a bartender. He would always talk to her about the challenges of dating in his '30s, given the unpredictable and odd hours that he worked (he's a police officer by day). Meanwhile, I would talk to her all the time about the difficulty of being a fitness competitor and TV news reporter, trying to find time to date someone with common interests.
After she learned our inner workings for over two years, it dawned on Amanda that Chris and I would be perfect together. Originally, I was hesitant about dating a bouncer (I told her that "It's not like I'm trying to get into da club!") but I quickly learned that there was so much more to Chris.
He is a compassionate, patient, honest, hardworking and hilarious man with a love (I prefer to use the word "obsession") for Giants baseball. Being a bouncer at "da club" was how he made extra money to buy Giants game tickets. Amanda's hunch led to a love that we had both only ever dreamed of — we quickly realized that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.
Fast-forward one year: Chris was secretly planning to re-enact our first date by taking me to Auburn, California's Hidden Falls, where he was going to propose. However, a week before his big plan, I was scheduled to run in the Triple Tahoe — three marathons in three days at the age of 33 years old. It was my lifelong dream to be proposed to at the finish line of a race but I never told Chris because I would have been happy with any proposal.
On Day Three, as I was running Mile #70 right above breathtaking Emerald Bay, I saw a guy waving and running towards me. It was Chris! Thank goodness — I now had someone to keep me entertained for the last 8.6 miles. But as we were nearing the finish line, he got super quiet. I kept asking him to replay our favorite songs ("Cruise" by Florida Georgia Line and "Sure Be Cool If You Did" by Blake Shelton) on his iPhone because my battery had died. Little did I know, he was silent because he was thinking about what he was going to say at the finish line.
He popped the question at the end of the race in front of my mom, brother, aunt, best friends, and all of my fellow runners who had traveled there to celebrate my finish. Of course, I said YES!
Now it's time to plan a wedding! I currently work as a morning news anchor in Reno, NV while I freelance nearly every weekend as a reporter in Sacramento (where Chris works as a police officer). So our long-distance love can survive state lines, but it may be a challenge to plan our wedding from different cities until we figure out where to live together.
This is sure to be an adventure of compromise and creativity that we are excited to share with BridalGuide.com readers!
— Neda Iranpour
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Neda Iranpour's fiancé, Chris, proposed to her after she ran three marathons in three days around Lake Tahoe. In keeping with the couple's adventurous spirit, they plan to have a four-day destination wedding somewhere in the United States. They can't wait to enjoy a fun-filled wedding experience with their guests, complete with paddleboarding, kayaking, running, dancing, sipping fine wine and drinking craft beer. Chris is a fun-loving, dedicated police officer and Neda is an Emmy-award winning news anchor who loves to share stories, even her own.
