- Melanie Spring, 44, met her husband, Dan Russell, 33, in 2017.
- Melanie thought Dan was too young for her at first.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Melanie Spring. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I first met my husband, Dan, in 2017 at a three-night sleepaway camp for entrepreneurs when I was 37 and he was 26. Think of the summer camp from "Dirty Dancing," but for adults who are high achievers running their own ventures. There were activities like color war, breath work sessions, dance parties, and learning experiences.
I thought, OK, I'm single. Maybe if I hang out with a bunch of other high-achieving entrepreneurs, I can find someone who thinks like me but isn't exactly like me.
When we first met, I thought he was too young, given our 11-year age gap.
I thought he wanted me to be his mentor
The first night I got there, I was having dinner with the other campers, and Dan looked at me across the table before he said, "What's your tattoo say?" I said "What's your tattoo say?" Our tattoos were in a similar place on our right arm. That's how our first conversation began.
I later found out that Dan was in the camp for people under 28. I thought he wanted me to be his mentor.
After the camp ended, I headed back to DC, and Dan headed back to Colorado. About two weeks after the camp ended, I posted on Facebook, "Hey, I'm headed to Colorado," looking to see if any of the people I met at camp might be there. When Dan saw the post, he said, "Oh my gosh, I live in Breckenridge." When I told him I was heading to the Jazz Aspen Snowmass festival, he said that maybe he'd come meet up. In my mind, I thought Breckenridge and Aspen were around the corner from each other, but they're actually about three hours away. Dan still grabbed a ticket.
When he went in for a kiss, I realized he liked me
Dan showed up on the first night of the festival. After the concert, we went out to a dinner place that turned into dancing after hours. We were the only people at this place. We were both on the dance floor dancing along, and then all of a sudden, he was super close to me and went to kiss me. I was like, "Wait you like me?" And he's said, "Of course, I do. The DJ cut the song off early, and we didn't end up kissing.
My friend rented a cabin for us to stay in for the Jazz Aspen Snowmass festival. Dan didn't have a place to stay. He planned on sleeping in his car. I told him there was a twin bunk bed in our cabin he could use, and he ended up staying the night.
Although we didn't kiss on the dance floor, we ended up kissing later that evening. He couldn't stay the entire three days, but when he left he told me he would come to visit me in DC. Three weeks later, he was on a plane headed to see me.
I realized something was going to happen between us
I didn't know it at the time, but he was broke. He could barely afford a plane ticket, but he didn't care. He figured it out. We spent a weekend together at my house, and I gave him a food tour. We found ourselves in a tea shop, and I decided to take a selfie of us. A lady in the tea shop looked over and said, "I love, love." It was just another confirmation that things were going to happen between us.
A couple of weeks later, he came back to visit me again. I decided I didn't want to keep doing the whole back-and-forth thing, so I asked him for his thoughts on us getting a place together in Denver while I rented out my home in DC. We were on the same page, and that Christmas, within 11 hours of each other, I found three people to rent my three-floor DC home and located a place for us in Denver. The rest is history.
We got married in 2019 on the Wewatta Bridge in downtown Denver, about two years after meeting. We danced on the bridge, and then after the wedding, we had dinner at a French restaurant nearby. It was absolutely stunning and really different from a typical church wedding.
One thing that characterizes our relationship is our mutual work to keep leveling up together. The more I grow, the more he grows, and it just keeps going. It keeps us together.
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