Yes, we really got married! And we could not be more excited to finally share the news with all of you!
We are fortunate to have friends and family all over the country. Our travel has been somewhat restricted the past year, so we haven't been able to visit all of you as much as we would have liked.
We put together these pages to share a little bit about us as individuals and as a couple.
Bennett is the middle child of Frank and Karen Skilling. From the beginning he was, as Karen says, "all boy" - active and curious and rarely sat still. He would climb on top of furniture and counters, exploring everything he could. But even at that young age, Bennett showed a sensitive side, becoming upset when his older sister Sara or younger brother John got more attention.
As he got older, Bennett continued to excel in athletics, especially baseball. In high school he showed both dedication to sports and studies, as well as occasionally causing trouble with friends. In fact, his mother, along with the mothers of several of his friends, formed the "BBMC" - short for the "Bad Boys Mothers' Club."
Bennett went to Auburn, and after graduating he moved out west to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He spent 8 years there, enjoying all that the town had to offer, and serving with the all-volunteer fire department. He then moved to Denver, where he spent the next two years growing his custom woodworking business, but realized something was off. He missed firefighting, and decided that if he loved it enough to do it for free, he should be a firefighter full-time. So he moved back to the east coast to renew his fire certifications, with the plan to move back to Denver once he was finished. He began dating Leslie, and his plans changed. Bennett is now living in Atlanta and working for DeKalb County Fire Rescue.
Leslie is the only child of David Powell and Vicki Weber. The daughter of two attorneys, she was precocious and opinionated (still is) and could always be counted on to have a horrible hair cut, courtesy of her mother.
At age 5, Leslie served as the flower girl in a large Catholic wedding. The wedding was too long for her taste, which she vocalized to the entire congregation mid-mass. Nevertheless, she wore the bright pink flower girl dress for years later, which highly amused the pizza delivery guys. We suspect that this is why she unapologetically wears vintage fur coats with sweatpants to Target.
When not on the soccer field, Leslie could be found studying, making new friends and rescuing stray dogs. Ever the instigator, she has been known to stir up trouble, and her parents caught her for almost everything she did.
“As with most teenagers, there were the difficult years. Like the time she ‘borrowed’ my brand new Volvo without permission and had to confess to making ‘a really bad decision here.’ Yes she had - she was 15, without a license and the car did not return home in the shape it left.
As she has acknowledged, ‘10th grade was pretty worthless’ because she spent all of it grounded. ”
When she was little, Leslie told her mother that she had no interest in going to Take Your Daughter to Work Day because she already knew that her mom just "read stuff, highlighted what you read, and went to meetings to talk about what you just highlighted." With her eye on medical school, she majored in psychology at the University of Florida. Naturally, she is now a banking and public finance attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.
Leslie and Bennett both grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, mere miles from each other.
Their paths didn't cross until high school, but when they did, Leslie noticed. To her, Bennett was the cute older guy who was popular and athletic and, oddly enough, extremely nice. While Leslie's crush on Bennett was well known among her friends, she swore he didn't know her name.
It wasn't until 15 years later that Leslie found out she was wrong. After drinks with Corinne Mixon, a mutual friend of the two, Bennett confessed that he not only knew Leslie's name, but that he'd had a crush on her since high school. Knowing how Leslie felt, Corinne immediately shared the news with her. Seeing nothing to lose, Leslie promptly called Bennett out and admitted to feeling the same. Aside from good-natured teasing, nothing materialized and the two went a year and half without speaking. Bennett was living in Denver launching his custom woodworking business and Leslie was back in Atlanta getting settled into a new job at her firm. And then one day everything changed, and both of them agree that it was worth the wait.
To say that Leslie was surprised to get a message from Bennett would be the understatement of the year. In what could only be described as fate, Bennett reached out after a year and half to let Leslie know that he was back on the east coast and wondering if she was available for a date. Leslie made him sweat for a few days, and then accepted his offer. Within days they'd planned a weekend for Bennett to come visit Leslie and some of his friends up in Atlanta.
What ensued is quite possibly the most unromantic weekend in history. There was a water leak in Leslie's condo, forcing plumbers to arrive at the exact same time as Bennett showed up for their first date. They went to a Brave's game, chowed down on hot dogs and over-priced cheap beer, while awkwardly dodging the kiss-cam to avoid having their first kiss broadcast to all of Turner Field. All of the outdoor activities Leslie had planned were rained out, so they spent Saturday afternoon with dozens of elementary school children at the Atlanta Aquarium. In what she hopes was endearing, Bennett overheard Leslie belting out quotes from Billy Madison. Leslie's 140-pound Bernese Mountain Dog, Sampson, got sick inside the condo, twice. But on that Sunday evening, after cleaning up Sampson's mess twice that day, ordering takeout and binge-watching Game of Thrones, Leslie thought that if this was how she spent every Sunday for the rest of her life, she'd be beyond happy.
Bennett was equally smitten, and surprised by how immediate their connection was. Bennett admits that he does not have the best memory, but he will never forget the image of Leslie that Friday, wearing an orange shirt and a huge smile, rushing down the stairs to greet him that Friday. She gave him a giant hug and immediately he felt comfortable and at home. All of the fiascos that ensued during the course of the weekend were just background noise and couldn't interrupt a conversation that lasted 48-hours straight, except to maybe clean up some dog poop. Bennett admits that he's never talked with anyone as candidly and openly as he did during that first weekend with Leslie. He immediately knew that he could tell her anything and wanted to tell her everything, and he knew how rare it was to find someone like that.
What shocked both Bennett and Leslie is how little time they spent catching up on what each had done in the past 15 years. Rather, they spent that first weekend enjoying who each had become. It became obvious that a relationship between them never would have worked had they reconnected earlier. For them to be compatible, for their interests and values to align, they needed to have their respective adventures and take their separate paths. But the saying timing is everything is valid, and Leslie and Bennett couldn't imagine having it any other way.
