By Joerg Weser

A couple of years ago, my son made a video of my in-laws talking about how they met. They have a cute story. While living in Richland, WA, he went to visit a cousin in Ogden.  That cousin was quite confident that he could set up a date with ‘any girl’ in town. With the words “pick one” he handed my father-in-law the school yearbook.  The subsequent date with the girl of his choice turned into 50 years of marriage and counting.

I love watching that little video of them reminiscing about their first date. It’s only natural that my thoughts immediately turned to the love of my life. We, too, have a great story. As a 16 year old I came to the US as a foreign exchange student from Germany and ended up in a family that had this beautiful college-age daughter who, four months into my stay, left for a mission to Japan. I remember the day she opened her mission call. I wasn’t a member of the Church back then and couldn’t understand why everyone started crying. Sure, Japan was cool, but … nobody cried at my house when we found out I was going to spend a year as a foreign-exchange student in Oregon. Oregon was cool, too.

Well, there is a lot more to the story and of course I ended up tying the knot with ‘my girl’. But the real purpose of this blog wasn’t to relive those precious moments. It’s to tell you about our how-we-met video. We did create one and I love watching it often. I have a photo by my desk with a QR code that links to that video. Because the video is so accessible, and even though I hate the little screen on my phone, there is something ‘magical’ about watching someone you love come to live on it, I watch it fairly often. And when I do I am reminded of how incredibly blessed I am.

How did we do it? It was actually quite simple. My son, the videographer at Rememberize, sat us down and had us tell our story. We gave him any photos we had of that time period and then he withdrew into his video lair and eventually showed us this video. Can’t get any easier, can it?

Our video not only tells our story, but also captures us – just as the video of my in-laws captures them. One day in hopefully a far distant future, when they are gone, I will watch their little video – which, by the way, we embedded into my father-in-law’s photo biography book via QR code – and I will remember who they were and that I love them very, very much. And I will hear my father-in-law’s words ringing in my ears that everything that really mattered in his life he had because of his wife, the one he picked from a school yearbook.

If you want to celebrate the love of your life, consider doing it through a how-we-met video. It’s a unique gift that will be treasured forever.