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Love story: 'I would stay up all night chatting with her'

We invited readers to share stories of how they met their spouses and interesting anecdotes about their wedding day. Here's Vijay Ratthinam's account of meeting his wife:

We first got introduced to each other through the Shaadi.com website. Then we exchanged our IDs and regularly chatted online.

I was in the US then and she was doing computer courses after engineering, before getting into the IT industry.

The time zones perfectly worked for us, as I used to chat with her all night from home and she used to chat with me all day from her computer centre. It was really interesting getting to know each other, as I was from Tamil Nadu and she is from Karnataka. The first thing both of us did was learn each others' language and impress each other. It continued and we shared a lot of our interests and ambitions.

We wanted to take the next step and expressed the same to our parents. Her parents were very clear that they can would take any decision only after meeting me. So I decided to come to India in February 2005 to meet her for the first time. D-day arrived and I was waiting at the Barista Cafe on MG Road in Bangalore. She was in another Barista waiting for me -- it started with a bit of confusion and nervousness, but by mid-day we both liked each other and I decided to visit her parents' home the next day.

It was initially tough to communicate with all the family members as we had relatives talking in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, but finally we were able to convince our families and get their blessings. Our wedding date was decided, keeping in mind the visa processing time and consulate appointment time. In September of 2005 we became a couple and it's been such a wonderful and eventful journey so far...

Now we both live in Bangalore and we have a daughter Iha, who is one-and-a-half years old.

Share your romantic experiences with us! Write in to getahead@rediff.co.in (subject line: 'My love story') along with a photograph of you and your spouse if possible and we'll publish the best entries right here!