A $40 Dare Leads to Marriage
Amanda Hodson married Brendan Miles five years after she kissed him for a $40 dare.
Her friend threw her the challenge to kiss the next stranger to get on their school bus and said she would pay her $40 if she did; never dreaming that her ‘taunt’ would end up with Amanda marrying the guy she kissed.
Brendan said “I walked on the bus, she walked up to me and all of a sudden she was kissing me. I just said ‘this is great’, and so I kissed her back”.
Amanda then took Brendan for a coffee with the ‘winnings’ from her friend and they found out they had a lot in common.
During the years they have kept the bus theme alive to the point that Brendan actually proposed to Amanda while they were on the bus.
The 23 year old newlyweds from Calgary got married this month and posed for their official pictures for the Canadian Press in the back row on the transit bus while fully dressed in their wedding outfits. The bus had been specially washed and given a wax coating in preparation for the photographs with a ‘congratulations’ sign flashing across the front of the bus.
The bride was dressed in a snow white dress and carried a huge bouquet of mixed white calla lilies with cascading orchids. The groom was dressed in black shirt and trousers with a white tie and matching orchids for his buttonhole.
Remembering Days Gone By
Amanda’s mother remembers the day her then 17 year old daughter kissed a stranger on the school bus and how her daughter told her that she would never see the guy again. “I couldn’t believe it as I did not raise her that way! I was shocked” she said.
Amanda’s brother Brad seemed not to be surprised by it all. "She's always been out there like this - always weird. So this is not a surprise to me that they'd go and do something like this."
The couple firmly believes that people can find their sole-mates in the strangest of places and Brendan says that while he would not recommend everybody go out and kiss strangers, the tale of their romance is proof that spontaneity can be a good thing.
"Do what you feel is right. If you want to be original, do it however you want. If it is on a bus, by all means, go for it” he said.
Destiny or Coincidence
There have been many blossoming romances that have begun from meeting on a bus to getting a misdialed message, from sitting next to somebody on a plane, banging trolleys in a supermarket or falling over somebody in the street.
Is it fate or pure coincidence? Do we end up with our true sole-mate or can something as simply as a change of mind or direction map out our destinations after all?
We all have our own ideas and beliefs and it would be truly magical if life did indeed lead us in the right direction for our intended love and we all lived happily ever after. Serendipity indeed!
