Boulderite Aaron Walker got bored over holiday break in 2003, so he created a website to find a wife.
He had been married briefly before and thought he’d done everything right the first time. “So, I was throwing up my hands,” says Walker, now 27. “It was half serious, half joking.”
To remove the shallow nature of online dating, however, he posted photos of himself with a paper sack over his head.
Walker called the experiment “Will You Marry Mr. X?” and created sections about Christian dating, the theology of courtship and offered advice about how to find a Godly spouse.
The site also included lengthy discussions of his theology, a short list of moral considerations – non-Christians and those under age 21 need not apply – and a few personal strongholds in his quest. First, he wants to live in Colorado. Second, as a composition and sound recording technology major at Colorado Christian University, music plays a large role in his ministry, so his new bride best like music. Third, since he’s an abstract thinker, it’s probably better if his mate is not.
Only about 10 women responded to his site. None were a match.
Walker intended to take the site down, but he never got around to it. Then, last March, Lacey Callahan found a few postings Mr. X had placed elsewhere online and came across his wife-search site.
She liked what Walker wrote about marriage, how a man should sanctify his wife and a woman should honor and respect her husband. “It seems like in our culture today that marriage is more a form of competition, than two players on the same team with separate roles,” says Callahan, 25.
She prayed before sending Walker an e-mail, but he was traveling on a choir tour and did not get her note. She decided to give it a week. In the meantime, she found another Mr. X posting that lamented that perhaps the ring he already had was too small. He was kidding, but Callahan saw her opening.
On the seventh day, she sent another e-mail, with the subject line “My ring size is 4.”
Walker considered ignoring her note, but his mom cajoled him into responding. He sent a less-than-nice e-mail back to Callahan, which basically said, “I don’t think we really have anything in common.”
Crushed but gracious, Callahan wrote back wishing Walker well. He realized his mistake and sent an apology.
They moved quickly from e-mail to phone calls, where Callahan says they approached a courtship backward.
“Our relationship started with Z and backed up to A,” she says. “Immediately, we talked about how we would want to raise kids, how we thought a marriage should go – all the things you normally talk about after you’ve dated a few months.”
“She just really knocked my socks off,” Walker says. ”
He visited her at her home in Kansas in May. She visited him in June, and he proposed.
With 55 guests in attendance, they married in a Garden of Eden-inspired ceremony at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster led by Frank Eychaner, one of Walker’s professors.
Lanterns lit the walkways and a few spotlights illuminated the rainforest canopy inside the otherwise dark conservatory. Crickets provided a soundtrack, and the warm, steamy air held the scent of hibiscus as Walker promised to sacrifice himself for Callahan’s holiness, and she pledged to honor, obey and serve him.
The wedding followed a dinner reception because Callahan thinks “it’s kind of strange to have the wedding ceremony and then go party with a bunch of other people.”
Looking back, Walker says, “I did it as a lark, and it just happened to turn out.”
Freelance journalist Roxanne Hawn welcomes suggestions for future Vows columns, denverpostvows@wispertel.net.
