Helen wondered where all the good men had gone… and then came Russ!
No-one could accuse Helen Bromley of rushing things. Her future husband didn’t get as much as a peck on the cheek until the end of their second date – and snogging had to wait many more weeks.
But for Russ Howell, Helen was more than worth the wait. “I still can’t believe I’ve met someone so right,” he says of the woman who is now his wife.
IT analyst Russ, 37, explains that Helen wasn’t simply playing hard to get during those chaste early dates. “She’d had some relationships with not so nice guys. She didn't want to be too forward with me, because she was unsure how honest or genuine I was.”
Russ wasn’t put off by Helen’s reticence. “I really liked her,” says Russ. “She was just what I’d been looking for: a normal, intelligent, chatty, pretty girl.”
He treated Helen to relaxed, cultured days out such as walking in the sun in Windsor and visiting Tate Modern in London. Finally, during a wander around St Paul’s cathedral, their budding romance reached what Russ calls its “turning point”.
“That’s when Helen kissed me for the first time. I think it’s because she knew by then that I was a genuine guy.”
Something special
Helen, a 31-year-old marketing account manager, reveals that she was impressed by Russ’s willingness to hold her hand affectionately before she’d even kissed him “properly”. This gentlemanly patience helped her decide that Russ wasn’t “the usual lad type, but something very special”.
“Also, he was able to hold a conversation,” says Helen, who admits that past heartache had made her somewhat suspicious of men’s intentions. Though she confesses: “I did like that he was good looking, too!”
First kiss finally dealt with, the dates continued with a day at Proms in the Park, an evening with Helen’s friends at a ‘Diamond and Dollar’ party, and the all-important meeting with Helen's parents.
Globetrotters in love
In summer 2007, a year after the couple first met, Russ whisked Helen off for a short break in Paris. They were standing on the steps of Sacre Coeur, the sun beating down, when Russ produced a diamond ring from the pocket of his shorts and asked Helen to marry him.
They married in May 2008, shortly after setting up home together in the Surrey town of Bracknell. Their honeymoon was a road-trip to remember around California and Nevada. “We spent three awesome weeks driving from San Francisco to Yosemite to Los Angeles to Las Vegas,” says Russ, still sparkling at the memory.
The couple have since finished refurbishing their home, and they’re currently working on their next project: starting a family. “We’re also planning to move countries quite soon,” says Russ. “Probably Canada.” The world, it seems, is their oyster.
