If someone had told her 10 years ago that Jeremy Sheppard would be the man she would marry, Jenna Rose would have thought they were crazy.
Jenna and Jeremy shared the same homeroom class at Clayton Heights Secondary for five years running, but the bad boy who wore baggy jeans and cut class and the studious “goody two-shoes” in pink didn’t hit it off.
“He would always poke fun of me in class, because I was so shy,” says Jenna, now a medical office worker. “I was kind of nerdy.”
Otherwise, they never spoke to each other. They ran in different circles – Jeremy with the popular kids, Jenna with her own, smaller circle of friends.
According to Jenna, Jeremy used to skip school all the time. “I’ve never skipped school ever,” she insists. “I was into beauty pageants – he was into skateboarding. It was almost like that Avril Lavigne song.”
And when they graduated in 2007, Jenna was thrilled that she wouldn’t have to deal with boys like Jeremy again.
Fast-forward to New Years Eve of that year. Jenna was a student at Simon Fraser University, and Jeremy – now a metal fabricator – was working at a construction company. They ended up at the same party.
“We kind of talked and caught up,” she says. The evening turned into a blossoming friendship that saw the pair gradually growing closer over the course of many months. It was a troubled time for Jeremy, who battled personal demons, and eventually overcame them with Jenna’s help.
“I just really cared about what happened to him and over time, he started warming up to me.”
A year later, they embarked on what’s become a conventional love story, though it didn’t start out that way.
The past four years have been filled with romance, love, travel and adventure, like feeding beluga whales at the Vancouver Aquarium and learning how to ski last winter. They were on a Whistler getaway when Jeremy proposed, arranging for room service to spell out in rose petals on the floor the question Jenna had been waiting to hear: “Will you marry me?”
“Of course I said yes!” Jenna recalls.
They’re planning a small, destination wedding with just a few guests. To their great happiness, they’re one of 10 finalist couples in a contest for a $20,000 dream wedding in the Mexican Riviera.
They’re hoping Cloverdale residents will help them garner enough votes to win.
“Maybe it wasn’t love at first sight,” Jenna says, “but sometimes life throws you a curve ball and everything you never knew you wanted has become everything you can’t live without.”
Go to www.globalnews.ca/contests/dreamwedding and vote for Jenna and Jeremy to Jan. 20.