Our Story

His Version

For Briana and I, it all starts on June 5th, 2010.

On that day, I was serving as best man at Stuart and Kathleen’s wedding. It was a fantastic wedding and a fantastic couple, and toward the end of the night it was my duty as best man to give a toast. I spoke, and despite my nerves, the toast came and went without indicent… or so I thought.

Can't you tell she's already fallen for me?

Briana was in the crowd that night. Having grown up with Stuart (she even knew him during those troublesome “football” years), she decided to come to the wedding with her family to see her childhood friend get married. Though she didn’t know most of the crowd, there was one boy that caught her eye — the debonair best man with a killer combination of charm, wit, and a gratuitous amount of sweat (it was June in Georgia, after all).

And so, unwittingly to me, started our love affair. Briana fell for me from the start, but my chance to meet her didn’t come for another month and a half.

(In reality, she didn’t notice me at the wedding or reception, nor does she recall my toast — harsh, right?! This version of the story is much better.)

As long-time friends, Mrs. Roeder (Briana’s mom) and Mrs. Lawder (Stuart’s mom) met from time to time to chat and catch up on life. On one such occasion, Mrs. Roeder casually mentioned that her daughter had enjoyed Stuart’s wedding, but she wished she had had a chance to meet some of Stuart’s male friends at the wedding. Mrs. Lawder, a clever woman with a penchant for clairvoyance, immediately interpreted this as Briana’s heartfelt desire to meet yours truly. Who can blame her?

Word eventually trickled down to Stuart, who invited Briana to dinner and church with our group one Sunday evening in late July. I was smitten with his cute blonde friend, and so I sought out extra opportunities to spend time with her over the next couple of weeks. After one particularly romantic group outing to Don Pablo’s, I mustered up the courage to ask Briana for her phone number.

On August 7th, we went on our first date. We watched the movie Inception and followed that up with dinner and drinks at Apres Diem in Midtown. I know you’re overwhelmed by the sheer romanticism contained in that first date — luckily, Briana preferred me to my taste in date locales.

From there, everything has been fantastic. Briana is one of the strongest people I know, and I love her for it. Though she’s faced hardship after hardship in life, she still loves the Lord and is able to love others. Even though I have a tendency to misdiagnose her maladies at times due to her low pain tolerance (examples: appendicitis, food poisoning… whoops!), she’s been patient and loving enough to forgive me for my shortcomings. She’s even developed a tolerance of Georgia Tech football for me — if that’s not the sign of a keeper, then I don’t know what is.

We’ve been all over the States together so far — from the streets of Charleston in the infancy of our relationship, to the City of Brotherly Love and its unbrotherly and unlovely Parking Authority; from the winding views in San Francisco in the middle of her West Coast road trip, to the train-themed hotels of Indianapolis in the middle of winter; from the mountains of Montreat, North Carolina where we got engaged, to the islands of Hawaii where we plan on celebrating our marriage together. As a guy who travels a lot, I know that none of my travel memories are as cherished as the ones I share with Briana, and I hope that we’ll continue to see many great places together for the rest of our lives.

Briana is everything I never thought I’d be able to find in another person, and that’s why she’s absolutely perfect for me! That’s why I proposed to her, that’s why we’re getting married on November 12th, and that’s why I look forward to spending the rest of my life with her.

Her Version

Chris was the best man at one of my oldest friend, Stuart’s, wedding in early June 2010. Chris and he had been roommates in college, while I was a childhood neighbor. I sat with other neighbors and my brother and sister-in-law, and we joked about the groom’s obnoxious Georgia Tech friends. And that was pretty much it- I went home that night and didn’t really thinking much about it. My mom, who had been on vacation during the wedding, went to lunch with the Stuart’s mom the next week. Somehow, they got into the conversation of how I thought someone at the wedding was cute. More accurately, my mom had asked if I thought anyone at the wedding was cute and I had responded that I had spent the evening talking with Will and Linda (my brother and sister-in-law). Regardless, the groom’s mom “knew exactly who my mom was talking about.”

Well, at the end of July, I received a text from Stuart asking if I wanted to go to church with him, Kathleen (his new wife), and some friends. I thought this was somewhat strange because we hadn’t talked in a long time and didn’t even have his phone number (apparently he had gotten mine from his mom!). But, since I had just moved downtown and hadn’t found a church, I thought “Sure, why not.” and tagged along.

We all met at Figo that night. When I showed up, Stuart, Kathleen, Chris, and another girl were already there. I thought “He’s cute, but I guess he is dating that other girl.” (Wrong.) I sat next to him at dinner and realized that not only did we go to rival high schools, but we also worked at competing accounting firms– though he is the first to tell you that he does not actually do accounting (editor’s note: accounting is lame!). I thought he was really funny, and we had an easy time talking to each other, so after church, I went home and added him as a friend on facebook. Chris immediately added me back- something I now realize is a rarity for a guy who never logs in to the FB. He, then, wrote on my wall:

“It was good meeting you the other night. Even if you ARE my rival in pretty much every way possible.”

I responded with:

“Rivals? you mean comrades! we both live the public accounting life, get lost a lot, and like regular coffee late at night!

Yeah, it was nice meeting you too! How’s the work travel treating you? Stocking up on mini-shampoos?”

And then the facebook chatting began. Our friends invited us to a movie later that week, and we played it cool (haha not!). I’ve been told by other dinner attendees from that night, that it was a set up. “Somehow” all of the people that had driven out to Vinings for dinner and a movie that night had plans and couldn’t make it to the movie. It ended up just being me, Chris, Stuart, and Kathleen. Chris walked me to my car that night and got my phone number. The next week, we went to dinner with the same group of friends at Six Feet Under. I got a text from Chris when I was driving over asking me to let me know when I got there so he could come out with an umbrella so I wouldn’t get wet. I thought it was so sweet, that I texted Lauren, my maid of honor, so we could gush together. He paid for my meal that night, confirming the age-old question “Does he like me back?” Lauren has said that I should have known when he watched the season finale of the Bachelorette just because I said that I was watching it and wanted something to talk about with me, but you know how it is when you aren’t sure!

The next day we went on our first date. Since then, we have been nearly inseparable. While he and I both have busy jobs, his which requires travelling four days per week, we always manage to spend as much time together as possible. Even when I was roadtripping from Seattle to San Francisco last November, he managed to use his weekly flight to rendezvous in San Francisco and meet up with a friend. Another favorite Chris moment was this past February, when I had my appendix out. Chris was in Minneapolis for work that week, and my mom stayed with me in the hospital. To say that I am a bad patient would be an understatement. By the time I went home a couple days later, my mom had probably had just about enough of my lamentations. Chris came home to my parents house, and completely let my mom off the hook. He slept on the floor of my parent’s office, where I was staying since it was downstairs, and set alarms during the night so he could give me my medicine. I think I even made him watch the Little Mermaid. But he never complained. He was always offering to get me water, or anything else that I needed, and just being all-around sweet. I think this is when my parents knew he was a keeper.

Chris is such a genuine, nice, and smart man. His faith and his outlook on life are so inspiring to me. He is always thinking of other people and truly considers every decision he makes- how it would impact those around him, how it would reflect on God, and how it affects his/our future. It was easy for me to see that he would make a great boyfriend/fiance/husband early on, even if I don’t remember his best man speech from our friend’s wedding!

The Proposal

It wasn’t long after we started dating (only a few months) that Briana and I both knew we would get married one day. From there, it all became a question of timing. As 2011 progressed, I increasingly began looking to the calendar for the perfect opportunity to propose. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many great holidays in the spring (Saint Patrick’s Day is one of the less romantic holidays if you’re not Irish…), and so I decided that Memorial Day Weekend would be the time.

The destination for the weekend was Asheville, North Carolina. It was a pretty easy sell for Bria — all I had to say was, “oh, I’ve heard Asheville is like an east coast version of Portland” and she was ready to go. The city was a new experience for both of us; I apparently had a couple of family vacations there growing up, but I have no recollection of those trips. I was a little more familiar with the area than Briana was, though — about twenty miles down the road from Asheville was a little mountain town called Montreat, home to a picturesque Christian college and a number of conferences throughout the year for Presbyterian youth. I attended several of those conferences, in both high school and in college, and they were formative for my walk with Christ. Considering the importance of that place to me, it seemed like the perfect place for Briana and I to start our walk together.

On the Saturday night of our weekend in Asheville, we decided we wanted to go out to a “nicer dinner.” I didn’t think any of the restaurants in downtown Asheville were quite what we were looking for, so I proposed (ha!) we try out a restaurant in a nearby town — Black Mountain, conveniently adjacent to Montreat. How strange! Anyway, we got in the car and drove out to the Blackbird, where we enjoyed one of the best meals we’ve ever shared. We relaxed and enjoyed the mountain weather as we ate our steakums, and once the sun had set I paid the bill and we got back in the car. As we started to pull out of the parking lot, I said “you know what — a town I went to for church conferences growing up is just a couple of miles away… let’s go take a look and I’ll show you around!” She agreed, unaware of my true intentions for our time in Montreat!

We drove up into the mountains and parked by the pond in the center of the campus. On the way up, I shared too many stories about bear encounters on the mountain with Bria, so when I suggested we go for a walk around the campus she was a bit reluctant. If only she knew what awaited her! Anyway, I eventually convinced Briana that bears prefer picnic baskets to humans when dinnertime rolls around, and we started on our walk. I showed her all sorts of places that were meaningful to me — the hotel where I stayed on college retreats, the sanctuary where we heard preaching and praises, the old house that had been converted into a facility for prayer walks. We eventually walked down a dark alley (“are you SURE there aren’t bears back here?”), and after we turned a corner a small shack built into the side of a hill came into sight. It was the campus’s prayer shack — the place I had gone when a friend of mine passed away while I was at Montreat in high school, and where I had cried out to the Lord for guidance and support. The shack looks out onto a creek that slowly trickles down the side of the hill — as my hometown pastor would say, it was a “thin” place, full of nature and solitude, where it’s easy to slow down and rest with the Lord.

At that point, I asked Briana to be my wife and companion for the rest of our lives together. She said yes (whew!), and after a bit of celebration we went to the altar in the shack and prayed for our relationships with each other and with God — that each day we’ll be drawn closer to each other and to Him, and in doing so will learn to share His love with one another and the world. All in all, we’re pretty pumped about it!

“...a cord of THREE STRANDS is not easily broken."-- Ecclesiastes 4:12

Venues

Ceremony Site

First Presbyterian Church of Marietta
189 Church Street Northeast
Marietta, GA 30060-1629
The ceremony will begin at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

Reception Site

The Brickyard at Marietta Station
129 Church Street Northeast
Marietta, GA 30060-1629

The ceremony will be followed by a cocktail hour beginning at 4:30. The reception will begin at 5:30 PM.

Hotel

A block of rooms has been reserved under the name “Luders Roeder Wedding” at:

Hilton Atlanta/Marietta Hotel & Conference Center
500 Powder Springs Street
Marietta, Georgia 30064

Wedding Party

For the Bride

Lauren Williams Friend of the Bride Maid of Honor	Lauren and I met at work, and her starting to work there instantly made the office a thousand times more fun. Lauren is the type of friend that will call at midnight to discuss something she saw on Facebook or will make t-shirts with you to celebrate a made-up National Waffle House Day. She is so fun and I laugh almost 100% of the time I spend with her. On the other hand, she is always a great friend to talk to. She never judges or is argumentative- she just listens until she ends up making me laugh. I could go on about the ridiculous shenanigans we have gotten ourselves into (e.g., following the Wienermobile, visiting hole in the wall BBQ joints, accidentally hitting the craps dealer in the face with the dice in Las Vegas), but suffice it to say that Lauren is an awesome friend and one of my absolutely favorite people to be around.

Linda Roeder Sister-in-law of the Bride Bridesmaid	When you have siblings, you always hope that they marry someone who you like. Someone who will be fun on vacation, who you can talk to, who will make holidays more pleasant. Linda has been just that type of sister-in-law. She is so laid-back and easy to talk to. She and Will have never hesitated to open up their doors when I needed anyone. I can always trust Linda to be honest with me, while never appearing overly blunt or uncaring. It was because of this that I knew she would be a perfect accomplice when it came time to shop for wedding dresses. In a matter of just a few years, I feel like she understands me more than almost any of my other friends. She is the best sister-in-law and a great friend.

Sarah Roeder Cousin of the Bride Bridesmaid	Sarah and Katie were my closest female relatives growing up. I never had a sister and my mom’s side of the family consists of all male cousins, so it was always such a treat spending New Year’s with two girl cousins that were about 6 months older and 6 months younger than me. Throughout the years, their family was coined the “Knoxville Roeders,” the “Malaysian Roeders,” the “Chicago Roeders,” and the “Indiana Roeders.” Clearly, they were all over the place, but that never stopped us from staying close. As we have gotten older, our relationship has grown from one in which our parents schedule our meetings to one where we manage to meet up from across the country. Sarah is such a hilarious person- very dry, really smart. I love talking to her, and we’ve often found ourselves chatting until the wee hours of the morning. Many of my favorite memories growing up involve her, so it only made sense that she should be a bridesmaid at my wedding!

Katie Heath Cousin of the Bride Bridesmaid	As I mentioned above, Katie and Sarah were a big part of my life growing up…even when their lives took them all around the world. Katie is such a sweet person! I have always been terrible at keeping up with people, but not Katie. She has always been so diligent about reaching out to me whenever she was in town and periodically checking in about how things are going. Katie always manages to be the pacifier of our family; she is so calm and easy to get along with. I was a bridesmaid at Katie’s wedding this past January, and I remember all the bridesmaids commenting that we were more nervous about our role than she seemed to be about hers! I love that she has always been so dependable in my life, while also being such a fun cousin.

For the Groom

Brandon Luders Brother of the Groom Best Man	As you might have gathered from a common last name, Brandon’s my brother (surprise!). Though he lives up in Boston now, he and I grew up together and he even paved the way for me at Georgia Tech! Brandon’s a brilliant guy and has accomplished a lot in his short years, and I look up to him for that. I’m so glad he’ll be my Best Man, and I look forward to having him by my side on November 12th.

Will Roeder Brother of the Bride Groomsman	Will is Briana’s brother, and I’m excited he’ll be one of my groomsmen for the wedding! I’ve enjoyed getting to know Will while I’ve been dating Briana — he’s a great guy and rock solid. He’s also expecting a baby son in late September, so it’s going to be a busy fall for Will! I’m excited that he’ll be a groomsman for that wedding, and I’m extremely excited that he’ll be my brother-in-law.

Andrew Garfrerick Friend of the Groom Groomsman	Andrew is one of my best friends from college. He and I actually met prior to Tech at a preview weekend, and a few months later we exchanged emails about sharing a dorm room together. We joined the same fraternity, graduated with the same degree, started work at Deloitte together, and ultimately ended up being roommates for six years until he got married! He’s a great guy, and though I miss him as a roommate I know we’re both moving on to bigger and better things. Besides, I think there’s an outstanding offer for us to be roommates in grad school — I’m sure neither of our ladies would mind!

Stuart Lawder Friend of the Groom Groomsman	As you can tell from this picture, Stuart is a special guy. He’s one of my best friends from college, and he grew up with Briana’s family. It was actually only due to Stuart that she and I met, so we’ll always owe that to him! Stuart and I were fraternity brothers and roommates for several years, and we even went on a mission trip to Honduras together. He’s a fantastic guy with a great sense of humor, which is also why he won’t get angry at me for posting this picture on our website. I’m excited that he’ll be a groomsman in our wedding!