This is a Lovers Lock. If you’d like to submit your own love story -and maybe have me create a personalized lock that will be added to Toronto’s Lover’s Fence- please read more about submitting here. Of course, you can always go and add your own. Toronto’s Lover’s Fence encloses Grange Park, the park behind the Art Gallery Of Ontario.

Miranda’s Love Story:

I met my husband Billy online almost 4 years ago in October 2005, we met on a site called OK Cupid and I don’t think either one of us was looking for anything serious at all because we both had just gotten out of serious, mind screwing relationships. We set up our first date and immediately hit it off. I was living on Huron Street at the time very near to Grange Park and he was in Oshawa so he would drive to Toronto to stay with me a few nights a week and get up really early to drive back to Oshawa for work. Within a month he had asked me to marry him,it wasn’t the first proposal I had ever gotten but it was the first I had ever taken seriously and considered going through with it. By December my salon on Queen West was closing and I was not exactly sure what I would do for income but he helped me set up a salon in my home and moved all the big stuff. He put in a lot of time getting me all organized to work from home and by the end of December we were living together, he and his son and myself and my sons. The entire time his ex was putting us through hell, it was very difficult to want to continue on with someone whose baggage was causing me a whole lot of stress! Miraculously, despite all the crazy nutjob things we dealt with from his ex we stayed together but she did try so many times to break us up. Before we had a chance to consider a plan for getting married I found out I was pregnant with our hilarious and crazy son, Rowan. One day in early September of 2006 we decided to head over to City Hall and get our marriage license, not really having set a date yet or knowing where the money to have a wedding would come from, just knowing somehow it would happen. We got our license and on a whim I called up to the chapel and they happened to have a cancellation for the next wk at 2 pm on Tuesday September the 12th 2006 and we booked it. I managed to grab rings for us, get my dress fixed ( I was over 6mos pregnant with Rowan by now), get him clothing to wear, send out emails about the day and take care of the kids in one day! The day of the wedding I worked in the morning and that afternoon we got married! We had some family and friends there, we had our children there and we had each other and that was more than enough for us! We have been together ever since, we have had ups and downs, we have had a custody battle with his ex in which we endured months and months of more strife from her but came out victorious, we have had issues within our relationship…we have conquered them all and are still together and happy and most of all we love each other to this day! Every day I wake up and think, ” I would marry this guy all over again”, everyday I am thankful to have such an amazing partner, an amazing father for my children and an amazing guy in my life.

For more than two years our family frequented Grange Park, we spent every day in the summer there, took our kids to the splashpad, the playground and the events held there. Grange Park is very near and dear to us, it is where our love and our family’s love grew, where we began as a family.

Thanks, Miranda of Miranda and Billy fame!

Posterchild:

Thanks for the lovely story!

Could you tell me the first names of all the children in your combined family? I have an idea for your lovers lock- I’d like to make a ring of combined inter-locked locks. Your and your husbands name on the largest center lock (Miranda & Billy) your two sons on a lock, his son on a lock, and your child that you had together on another lock (Rowan)

Is that OK? I can do something else if you’d rather not share their names. Nicknames or pet names would be fine too!

Thanks again,

Take care

Post

Miranda:

I would love that!!! Kalan is 20, Jack is 4 and Aiden is 8 and Rowan is our little monkey