Susan Bailey played golf as a youngster. She took up the sport again as an adult because it can be a very social game.
All that getting-to-know-you effort has been good for her career, but it also transformed one man from client to father-in-law.
Meet: While on a golf course near Philadelphia several years ago, Albert Mayer Jr. learned that Bailey loves sports. He told her: “You’d be perfect for one of my sons.”
She laughed it off. “When you are single,” she says, “everyone is trying to set you up.”
Two years later, Mayer Jr.’s wife, Suzanne, met Bailey at an industry conference in Seattle. Again, she told Bailey, “You’d be perfect for my oldest son.”
Suzanne Mayer promptly went home and told Albert Mayer III the same thing.
“I thought, ‘Well, she lives in Denver, so it isn’t going to happen,”‘ says Mayer III, who lived in Maryland at the time.
When Bailey completed an audit for the company where both father and son worked, however, Mayer III made a point of introducing himself.
“I got the most overwhelming feeling,” Bailey recalls. “It smacked me in the face. As he was walking away, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I just met my husband.”‘
Match: When she returned to Colorado, Bailey mailed Mayer Jr. a thank-you note, which included an offer of reciprocal hospitality, including tickets to a hockey game, “should he or any of his handsome sons ever come to Denver.”
“I heard that and thought, ‘Well, there you go,”‘ says Mayer III.
So, he sent a casual e-mail. Once every week to 10 days, they exchanged notes. Then, Bailey and Mayer III took a chance on his parents’ hunch, and gambled on their future, literally. They wagered on a Dec. 27 Avalanche-Flyers hockey game. The loser had to fly to the winner’s hometown and buy dinner. The Avs won in overtime, and Mayer III arrived in Denver on New Year’s Day 2004.
Following dinner at the Chophouse and a weekend at Bailey’s home, (“He was a total gentleman,” she clarifies), the romance blossomed.
Mayer III bought a ring in February and proposed in March. “I think she was shocked, but she didn’t cry,” he teases. “Everyone told me she would cry, and she didn’t. I was a little disappointed.”
Marry: Before 160 guests, Bailey and Mayer III celebrated their nuptial Mass with the Rev. Stephen Sievert, whose parents served as the couple’s sponsors during premarital counseling. Sievert spoke to them about the importance of daily prayer, regular church attendance and spiritual peace. During the 90-minute ceremony, he even teased them about the heroism of commitment, calling the process of listening and keeping a marriage vital as “taking a bullet.”
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