Melissa and Michael in Baden Baden, Germany, 2008.

On their wedding day, Melissa and Michael will have been together for nine years.  Below is information about how they met and what they are doing today.

How They Met (2001)

Though they attended high school together at Notre Dame Cathedral Latin in Chardon, Ohio, Melissa and Michael only began talking one day in their choir class when Michael commented on a novel Melissa was reading for class and offered to bring in a “better book” for her to read, which ended up being the novel Demian by the 20th century German writer Hermann Hesse.  Melissa having read the book by the next class, Michael proposed another: Hesse’s Steppenwolf.  After she quickly read that one as well, they started to talk about what Michael was reading at the time, namely, James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, one of the founding texts of anthropology.  Michael mentioned how he wanted to see the movie Apocalypse Now, which includes a scene featuring Frazer’s book, to see how it might be relevant now that he knew what it was about.  Melissa expressed interest in seeing the film and they set up a tentative plan to watch it together – their first “date”.

a first date

Today

Since they met, Melissa and Michael both graduated from Notre Dame Cathedral Latin High School as well as Miami University, where Melissa studied Botany and Michael majored in Philosophy.  Upon graduation from Miami, Melissa entered the College of Medicine at the University of Toledo, Ohio.  After receiving her M.D., she hopes to enter a residency program in pediatrics.  When Michael graduated, he was the recipient of the Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Prize, so in addition to beginning to pursue a PhD in Philosophy at Columbia University in the City of New York, he also spent a year in Vienna, Austria, through the support of the Goldman Prize.  Michael hopes to pursue a career in academia.