Lee Robinson's smooth moves made him the right next step for Susan Wills, but it took some fancy footwork to get her number.
Lee had been back in his hometown of Little Rock for about a year after going to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., and then working in Colorado. He vowed to expand his social circle at the Christmas party he was invited to in December 2001.
"I knew the people from when I grew up but I wasn't really meeting anyone new. I told myself that that night I was going to talk to people," he says.
Susan had made a bold statement on the way out the door to that same party.
"I told my friend, 'I'm going to go to his party and find the person I'm going to marry.' She just said, 'Oh, come on, Susan. You're nuts. You can't do that,'" Susan says.
Lee was already at the party when Susan arrived. He noticed her immediately.
"But being more shy than outgoing I didn't talk to her then," Lee says.
Susan was on a mission, so she found the party host and gave him marching orders.
"One of the first things I said to the host was, 'Your job tonight is to make sure that I meet every single man who is at this party. If he's single, I want to meet him,'" she says.
It took the host a while to point out the guys who weren't spoken for, but eventually, according to Susan, "He looked around the room and said, 'I tell you what. There are actually two."'
One was an Adonis-type, surrounded by a gaggle of girls. Susan removed him from the running immediately, guessing he might be a bit "full of himself."
"Then he pointed at two men standing near the front of the house -- one was an older gentleman and the other one was Lee. Lee was wearing a sweater vest over a button-up shirt which was completely not my style," she says.
Thus, Lee was out of the running then too.
Later, though, Susan and Lee bumped into each other in the kitchen -- maybe literally, given that the party was in a Hillcrest bungalow -- and Lee's friend, who had known Susan when they were kids -- started the conversation by playing catch up with Susan.
Chatting soon evolved into dancing for Lee and Susan. There wasn't an actual dance floor, and the spacing of the furniture was tight, which made for a few stumbles and much levity.
"I am kind of like a club dancer, and Lee is a cotillion dancer, so it was a really interesting mix, and I think that's kind of why we bumped into things because I didn't know his moves. It was all foreign to me because no one had ever tried to dance with me like that," she says. "It was a neat little treat but I did keep tripping over the ottoman."
Susan's friend was ready to leave before she was, so Lee took her home.
"I totally chickened out and didn't ask for her number," he says. "I got home the next day and I was really upset with myself. I was actually contemplating leaving a note in her mailbox ... I didn't want to just knock on her door and creep her out."
He got her number from a friend of a friend, who asked her permission before passing it on, and called to ask her for lunch.
They rang in the new year together at another party, and that was only the beginning.
Susan picked Lee up at the airport after a business trip in October 2002, and the two went to dinner. Susan had bought a house, and it turned out to really be more than she could handle. She was planning to ask a friend to move in and share expenses. The situation turned out to be the only topic of conversation between her and Lee that night.
Back at her house, Susan excused herself to go to the restroom, and when she returned Lee dropped to one knee with a ring he had hidden in her house before he left on his business trip.
They were married on March 15, 2003, at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church.
The couple have two children -- Sam, 12, and Kate, 10 -- and now live just a couple of blocks from the house where they met. Lee works for Nuvell Financial Services; Susan owns a Fit4Mom franchise.
The home where they met was sold, thus the annual Christmas party held there came to an end. They find other places to dance on occasion, though.
"She can't dance as well as I can," Lee quips. "She laughed when I said that, but she didn't disagree with me. But she's very coordinated. She was a dancer all growing up and she is a good dancer too."
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The first time I saw my future spouse:
He says: “She was glittery. She had on a glittery gold blouse so she was really sparkly. That’s what caught my eye first.”
She says: “My head was open but my heart wasn’t.”
On our wedding day:
He says: “I have really vague snapshot memories of our wedding day because it was such a whirlwind.”
She says: “I couldn’t wait for the formal part to be over. It all felt like a big waste to me — we spent all this money and there was so much. I knew that wasn’t what our marriage was about and I was just ready to get on with our lives.”
My advice for a lasting marriage:
He says: “I’m still trying to figure it out. I could do the pat answer that she’s always right but that’s not true, except when she’s giving me that look.”
She says: “Be willing to see the other side.”
The first time I saw my future spouse:
He says: “She was glittery. She had on a glittery gold blouse so she was really sparkly. That’s what caught my eye first.”
She says: “My head was open but my heart wasn’t.”
On our wedding day:
He says: “I have really vague snapshot memories of our wedding day because it was such a whirlwind.”
She says: “I couldn’t wait for the formal part to be over. It all felt like a big waste to me — we spent all this money and there was so much. I knew that wasn’t what our marriage was about and I was just ready to get on with our lives.”
My advice for a lasting marriage:
He says: “I’m still trying to figure it out. I could do the pat answer that she’s always right but that’s not true, except when she’s giving me that look.”
She says: “Be willing to see the other side.”
High Profile on 09/04/2016