Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/307716
realweddings.ca 35 K kim wong and grant murray were high school sweethearts from West Vancouver who stuck together through seven long years of separation as each pursued education thousands of miles from the other. But when they tied the knot last summer, both were relieved to finally be planning a future together, one without Skype and long-distance calls. It was the romance that almost never happened. Kim was wowed the moment she laid eyes on Grant on the school basketball court. Determined that he notice her too, she made sure to place herself where he was. More often than not, that meant the basketball court, an arena where she wasn't at her most comfortable. Still, she tried out for the girls' basketball team at Rockridge Secondary, got selected, and soon caught the eye of the boy she admired. Fast-forward nine years and Kim was working towards her doctorate in occupational therapy at the University of Southern California. On the opposite coast, Grant was a senior at dental school in Boston. e two planned that he would visit her when she finished school, but Grant had something more up his sleeve. In July 2012, 10 days before he was supposed to arrive, he flew into L.A., arranged for one of Kim's friends to take her out for dinner, and let himself into her apartment. "I decorated it with mementoes of our last nine years together and made a treasure map so she'd find the clues she needed," he says. e final treasure awaited beneath a massive tree not far from her apartment. at's where Grant was waiting, dressed in his finest and lit by the white lanterns he'd placed in the tree boughs. As Kim approached bare- foot across the park, he bent down on one knee and held out the ring he had chosen for his bride-to-be. p34-37_Kim+Grant.indd 35 14-04-17 11:31 AM