Name: Norma Anne Chattin
Name of Couple: Norma Anne and Henry
Love Story: Most little girls dream of getting married. As a teenager in 1974 I thought I would marry my boyfriend Henry when we graduated from school in 1979. I had picked out a date, selected Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” as our song, and decided to carry violets and daisies in my bouquet. According to my diary at the time, I was the “happiest I’ve ever been.” Henry went away to college before me and my family moved across the state so we lost contact with each other for 27 years. We both graduated from college, married and divorced, and remained close to our families. After seeing my name on a class reunion website, Henry wrote to me in 2001. Although we had just reconnected, I shared with him a journal entry I wrote in 1997 where I thanked him for being the best first boyfriend a girl could ever have. Silly me, I thought they’d all be like him… We communicated by email for several months before meeting again in person to go to the annual Fireman’s Fund Raiser Carnival in the county where we had attended high school together. The minute we saw each other, the years melted away to uncover the mutual love and affection we had always shared. We poured over photos, journals, and mementos I had saved as part of my scrapbooking hobby. Henry had lost most of his childhood photos and was fascinated to see so many reminders of our past. He said it felt like I really had saved time in a bottle for him… As adults, we cautiously built a solid foundation of friendship before we began dating. Deep down, we knew we didn’t want to be apart from each other again. After two years we moved in next door to each other in West Palm Beach. We’ve weathered storms (literally losing my home to Hurricane Jeanne) and rejoiced in triumphs great and small like the marriage of Henry’s daughter, making new friends, and enjoying our two Jack Russell Terriers. Henry proposed to me on Valentine’s Day in 2005 as we were having a picnic on the unfinished floor of my replacement home. We’re grateful for the opportunity to be finalists for the Dream Wedding Contest. In the song “Time in a Bottle” there is a line that goes, “if dreams could make wishes come true….” That’s just how we’d feel if won-- that dreams had made wishes come true for us. Today I’m ready to make the first boy I ever kissed the last man I’ll ever love with a CBS-12 Dream Wedding.