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Jennifer and John Belding
Our Love Story
September 30, 2007 at Chef’s Table (NECI) Montpelier, Vermont
 How we met
Everyone assumes because John and I are both chefs that we had either worked together or met through friends in the industry. They’re all wrong. I was working in Sydney, Australia and my schedule was crazy and didn’t give me a chance to meet people, let alone date. John was having the same problems with an equally strange schedule and life in a small Vermont town. He broke a little before I did and joined the online E-harmony service in hopes of a change, and when I joined later one of my first matches was John. What could be more wonderful than another chef?
Attraction
But, I never really wanted to date a chef! Truth be told, what brought us together was that we had both read the same books recently, and his profile said in a previous life he had been an engineer. This appealed to me because before becoming a chef I had wanted to be a doctor, a similar technical profession.
Well, obviously we hit it off (thanks internet) and after a few months John decided to take his life in his hands and risk the Australian sun for a visit. Side note, Vermont chefs are known to burst into flames with a short exposure to the sun after a good winter. After a bit more than 10,000 miles and 21 hours John was in Sydney where we spent the week together and quickly knew that we were “right” for each other.
How we got engaged
After John left, we talked even more than before, and soon he was planning a longer second trip. This time it was still those same fabulous 10,000 miles, but it took a little more like 28 hours. He beat his luggage to Australia by about 24 hours and was exhausted. We went straight to my house so he could take a nap, but spent the time talking instead. I was showing him some shoes that I had bought for my sister’s upcoming wedding when he surprised me by quite literally throwing a ring at me while asking “Will they go with this?” Needless to say, I was a bit surprised, though not by the lack of romance in the proposal. He claims that he had great plans involving ferries or the opera house or some other nonsense, but that the exhaustion and stress got to him. I think he’s just trying to make himself look good, but I did say “yes” so in the end he got the result he wanted!
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