BE Surnames 2000-2009 Marriage

BEACH m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-03-05 published
Kristin ANDERSONS and Jason VAN BRUGGEN -- Match:
By Judith Tenenbaum, Saturday, March 5, 2005 - Page M6
On January 22 in Halifax, 93-year-old convalescing Zizi ANDERSONS dressed up, poured herself champagne and listened on the telephone to her granddaughter's nuptials in Toronto. Only months before, Kristin ANDERSONS and Jason VAN BRUGGEN had been planning a summer wedding, but brushes with death in their respective families and news of an impending birth prompted them to redefine their priorities and pull together a ceremony in a matter of weeks.
"All of these events occurring at the same time brought everything into sharp focus," Mr. VAN BRUGGEN says.
Products of preppy Havergal and Upper Canada Colleges respectively, both say their families were paramount in shaping their lives. "We had incredible opportunities growing up, family vacations in Europe, at resorts and I practically grew up on the lake," Ms. ANDERSONS says.
Although a reluctant Mr. VAN BRUGGEN moved at the age of 15 with his family to the Netherlands for the rest of his high-school career, he acknowledges today that his parents made the decision with the best of intentions. "I improved my Dutch and French, but was still able to come back here in the summer to go to camp and now understand what my parents were trying to do and how it benefited me.... They gave me lots of opportunity and I embraced every aspect of the outdoor lifestyle."
The couple, now both 32, had instant chemistry when they met in December of 2002 at a party thrown by a mutual friend. They found that they share an inherent love of the outdoors -- Mr. VAN BRUGGEN is an avid canoeist, mountain climber and competitive rugby player while Ms. ANDERSONS danced, competed in tennis, skiing and volleyball and rowed crew for Havergal and the Argonaut Rowing Club.
Each had also recently returned to Toronto after spending years abroad. Mr. VAN BRUGGEN, a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, was making a foray into filmmaking after travelling and working in international development in Africa. Ms. ANDERSONS, meanwhile, had studied film at the University of California at Los Angeles and attended the L.A. Film School on a scholarship. But she says, "My family and Friends were here. I'd been away a long time and my agenda was to see if I could move home."
By March of 2003, encouraged by her new flame, she did, and decided to pursue a master's degree here in her original discipline, clinical psychology.
The romance didn't diminish Mr. VAN BRUGGEN's wanderlust, but his travels brought their relationship into focus.
He spent the winter of 2003 filming in South America, jaunted home and was off again to India last summer. "It put a strain on the relationship," he admits. The realization that he had travelled to 75 countries gave him pause to reflect and confirm Irish author George Moore's dictum, "A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."
When he returned, the couple purchased a home in Riverdale and Mr. VAN BRUGGEN proposed between touchdowns during Monday Night Football. "It was strategic," Ms. ANDERSONS jokes, "Jason now has an excuse to watch every week."
Plans for a wedding this summer by her parents' cottage were foiled on every front. They had a church but no firm date and nearby reception venues were all booked. There was just one sure thing, Ms. ANDERSONS says. "I found my wedding dress, the only thing that solidified."
In November, the pair was overjoyed to find that Ms. ANDERSONS was unexpectedly pregnant. "I never thought it would be that important to be married before we had a child, since we were spending the rest of our lives together," she says pensively. "If it were somebody else, it would not phase me for a second, but I realized how important it actually was to me."
Ms. ANDERSONS quickly shared her joy with her mother, but it was tempered by news that Grandmother Zizi in Halifax needed an emergency operation.
"My mother was ecstatic," she says, "but our exciting news was soon accompanied by devastating news -- Jason's father had a heart attack days later." Relishing the prospect of a grandchild, he survived his near-fatal condition and subsequent surgery.
The couple decided that now was the time to act, Mr. VAN BRUGGEN says. "We said, 'Let's get married for ourselves, our unborn child, and the sake of our families, with Kristin's grandmother mentally well enough to understand.' "
Within weeks, she and her mother whipped up a wedding, Ms. ANDERSONS says. "Doors just opened, [the University of Toronto's] Trinity chapel was available, Massey College for a reception across the street, the trumpet soloist, the stringed quartet and the choir were free."
On the blizzardy evening of January 22, Reverend John BEACH officiated in a luminescent Trinity College Chapel as celebrants held lit candles. Teary emotions peaked during the processional as the bridegroom's resolute father walked up the aisle with his wife, followed by the bride's maternal grandmother and father, and then Ms. ANDERSONS with her brother Steve. "I'll always remember his squeeze before he turned me over to my parents," the new Mrs. VAN BRUGGEN says.
Her husband says he hopes to be able to impart the same strong sense of family to his own children. "Goals change when you start conceiving of yourself as a family," he says, adding that his travels affected his social awareness and religious and cultural tolerance. "I'd love to educate my children by exposing them to the exotic, but within the parameters of keeping them safe."