In 2006, while both working for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic organization, Janice and Charlie met.  Shortly after meeting Charlie,  Janice realized she knew his sister from her university days – a very small world.   In the Fall of 2007 Charlie and Janice began dating and they had an amazing 3 year whirlwind adventure in Vancouver, with all the excitement of the upcoming Olympics.   As the Olympics came to an end, their relationship certainly didn't!  They sold all their possessions and began a three month adventure throughout South East Asia, before moving to Toronto where they both began their new careers. 
 
December 2010 rolled around and  Charlie decided, for thefirst time, to celebrate their “anniversary” – well, what Charlie believed was their anniversary.  They have differeing opinions as to what was the actual "anniversary" of their meeting.   Janice was busy running errands, and arrived home to a “cheesy”  Happy Anniversary banner on the front door of their apartment.  As she hesitantly opened the front door she  was welcomed with romantic music playing,  flowers,  candles lit and chilled champagne on a beautifully set dinner table.  She proceeded to burst out laughing – Janice is not the cheesy romantic type and this was too much, even though Charlie was quite proud of himself!  After they had both stopped laughing and calmed down somewhat,  she did ask him to take down the banner on the front door as she was just a little embarrassed.   They toasted each other with some wonderful champagne and shared  an amazing meal, and then Charlie proclaimed it was gift exchange time! Of course, Janice hadn’t bought anything because she didn’t think it was their anniversary, and it was the first time they had ever celebrated it.  Charlie brought out a Mexx bag, which Janice immediately thought was the sweater she had been eyeing in the store - and was quite excited, she was envisioning just how it would look!   She began to unwrap the bag and quickly noticed that there was no sweater, but just a small box inside and was quite confused.  She opened the box, saw a beautiful, sparkling ring and burst into tears as she slammed the box closed.  Charlie then got down on bended knee to propose  – but nothing of what he said registered with Janice, as she was too busy crying for the next 10 minutes.   Poor Charlie had very sore knees for a while after kneeling on the hardwood floor for so long.

The wedding took place in Janice’s hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - located in the heart of Canada. Their families come from two different cultures, Charlie’s from Ghana in West Africa. They wanted to meld both into the wedding as much as possible – black and white was incorporated from the Ghanaian cloth and culture. The table runners, head table were all draped in Ghana cloth and the party favors were Ghana stools symbolic of the royal throne from the Ashanti tribe of which Charlie traces his ancestry to. The cloth was also used to wrap the bouquets in and the pocket squares for the groomsmen.  Our flower girl wore a traditional Ghanaian dress for the ceremony and one of the church readings was recited in Twi, a tribal language of Ghana.

With their friends and family being so important to them and such a large part their upbringing, they were very lucky to have so many travel from all over the world to make their day so special!

bi blessed da na bi blessed ahyɛase kɔ yɛn foforo bra bɔ mu

(Twi for "A blessed day and a blessed beginning to our new life together.")