Jennifer Lee Brown was named for her paternal grandmother, Jane Lee Brown. She was born in Moonachie, New Jersey, where she lived for the first ten years. Then her family moved to a small town in Mississippi just outside of Memphis, TN where they lived for six years. Finally, her family settled down in Atlanta, Georgia. After 10 years in Atlanta, the place Jenny referred to as "home", it was time for a change. Jenny longed to move to Portland, Oregon but a wonderful career opportunity presented itself in Nashville, TN. Jenny truly believes that everything happens for a reason and she took the position as Technical Support for a mortgage software company in March of 2002 and met Ben a month later. How wonderful to find out that Ben loved Portland just as much and someday he hoped to move there also...
Benjamin Leighton Girdler was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, and doesn't know that he'll ever lose that influence. Then he moved to the horrible mistake-on-the-lake of Cleveland, Ohio (apologies to those of you who live there) for a year, and was thankfully rescued by a research organization in Nashville. Ben has a psychology degree, but has worked mostly with pharmaceutical research (no, not the illegal kind!) since he graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1997. Ben spends a lot of time travelling to hospitals around the country, which was difficult to get used to when he wanted to see Jenny all the time!
Most people are amazed when we tell them that we actually met through Match.com, an online "date matching" service. Jenny (Little_Jenny) emailed Ben (PharmaBen) on April 1, 2002 and after many emails and many long hours on the phone we met in person for the first time at a restaurant (The Bound'ry) on April 7, 2002. We became best friends very quickly, since we have so much in common. We had both dreamed about moving to Portland, Oregon, and now are have TOTALLY DONE IT!!!!! But that part comes later...
We got engaged on February 15, 2003. Ben planned a romantic weekend in New Orleans for Valentine's Day weekend. We were staying in room 1419 at the Astor Crowne Plaza hotel on Canal Street. Ben started talking to jewelers and diamond brokers in December, bought the ring in January and kept the whole thing a secret, which drove him nearly insane. Always the romantic, Ben knew that the proposal had to be extra smooth, and he wanted it to be related to something special that he and Jenny enjoyed doing together. For fun, sometimes Ben and Jenny read children's bedtime stories to each other (their favorite is "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak!). Ben used that idea and wrote a bedtime story about two bears who met and fell in love. The bears in the story were Gentle Ben and Jenny-Bear. Ben bought two small bears and photographed them enacting scenes from his book (most of the pictures were taken with a digital camera in Lincoln, Nebraska, while Ben was on a business trip!). In the last scene, Gentle Ben proposes to Jenny-
Bear. As Jenny finished reading the book around midnight of Valentine's Day, Ben explained calmly (yeah, right!) to her that there was another present to go with the story book. He grabbed the box, got down on one knee beside the bed, and told Jenny how much he loved her, and asked her to marry him.
After being struck speechless for a few moments she said "Yes!", of course! Jenny cried when he opened the box and took the ring and put it on her hand. The actual proposal took place on February 15, 2003, which is special to Ben because it was his maternal grandparents' anniversary. Neither Ben nor Jenny can remember exactly what Ben said prior to the proposal, except that it was beautifully spoken and sweet and romantic, and they wish they had written it down!
Now we're married and enjoying our lives together. You can read more about what we're currently up to on the "House of Elliott" page.
