Melony Medley just wanted a date for her college graduation. She got that -- and more.
Melony's sister was getting married in October 2000, and she needed to keep pace.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I liked his skin color and his shoes.”
He says: “I thought she was sexy … and cute.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I was just really, really happy. It was a long day, though.”
He says: “It was a long day. It was from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.”
My advice for a long happy marriage is:
She says: “Something that has held us together is friendship. I think that we’re really good friends, so when I get mad at him as my husband I’m not as mad at him as my friend. I think that holds us together, that we’re friends.”
He says: “Prayer and communication, communication and prayer.”
"To be completely honest, I was really in pursuit of a date because we're twins," she says. "Everybody compares twins. If one person is doing something people are looking at the other one. I knew people were going to have 10,000 questions -- you know, 'Your sister's married and you don't even have a date. Why?'
Melony started her search for a date early. In August, a few months before her December graduation from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, she asked a friend for help, and the friend's husband suggested Christopher Phillips.
"We all attended the same church," Melony says.
Melony and Christopher even sang in the choir together at St. John Baptist Church in Little Rock -- but she didn't know him.
"I don't think I had ever seen him and I'm not sure he had ever seen me, either," she says.
Their friends introduced them after church one Sunday.
"We talked for a while," Melony says.
Christopher's memory of that moment is a bit more dramatic.
"I saw her across the sanctuary and I knew God had sent her for me," he says.
Melony was student-teaching then and working part time at a clothing store. Christopher and his cousin dropped by the store that afternoon to say hi.
"I don't think we set a date to go out then," she says. "We did exchange phone numbers."
A couple of weeks later they met for dinner at Chili's -- and Melony was at least a half hour late.
"I was sitting at Chili's and I was like, 'She's going to stand me up,'" Christopher says.
Melony, who says it took her a long time to figure out what to wear that night, noticed what Christopher was wearing immediately.
"He was wearing a pink shirt with brown leather suspenders and some slacks and some brown Polo shoes," she says. "I was real late. He was sitting there with his legs crossed and his arms folded across his chest."
After dinner, they saw a movie at the Breckenridge theater.
They were still dating other people, then, but they went out often.
"He did come to my sister's wedding. He didn't come with me but he did show up," she says.
By Thanksgiving, they had decided to be exclusive.
Money was tight for Melony, who wasn't paid for student teaching. They enjoyed their relationship for all the usual, romantic reasons as well as for a practical one.
"Christopher had already graduated from college and he had his own money. He literally used to feed me all the time," she says. "He would take me to dinner or whatever almost every day, it seemed like. My favorite thing to eat was chicken fingers so we always laugh about me being the chicken finger lady."
Christopher jokes good-naturedly about being used, and admits he was glad her meal of choice was chicken fingers rather than something pricier.
"It might not have worked out then," he chuckles.
He often had red roses delivered to her at work or to her apartment after their dates.
He was her date for graduation.
"He stayed the entire time," Melony says. "My brother-in-law sat on one side of my mom and he sat on the other side."
The family reserved a private room at a steakhouse to celebrate the twins' graduation, and that's where he met Melony's extended family.
"Everybody was pretty impressed, I think, with his voice because his voice is pretty deep. They called him Barry White all the time," Melony says. "It was a good first family activity. That's one really big blessing. We've always had a good connection with our families. We mesh pretty well."
Melony had started her first teaching job by 2003, but she was supplementing her income with a part-time job at Outback Steakhouse.
She worked on Valentine's Day that year. When she finished her shift at 9, she drove to Christopher's house, which was lighted exclusively by candlelight. He had scattered rose petals and he had grilled salmon and vegetables for them and after dinner, he proposed.
"It was too late for me to call anyone by the time he proposed," Melony says.
They were married on Dec. 27, 2003, at St. John Baptist Church.
Christopher works in information technology with the Little Rock School District. Melony is special education coordinator for Lighthouse Academies of Arkansas.
They have two sons -- Jones, 11, and Porter, 6.
Melony found what she didn't know she was looking for with Christopher.
"I didn't have any intentions of dating anybody because actually I was planning to move to Dallas after I graduated. I wasn't trying to find anybody to settle down with at all because I was getting ready to go," she says. "I was just looking for a decent guy who could sit through my graduation ... and I found him."
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High Profile on 02/18/2018