LOVE STORIES
Marriage proposal precedes 'I love yous'

By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer

Ivan and Anita Hurlburt had a whirlwind romance. He proposed after three weeks, and she waited 24 hours before she said yes. Hurlburt family photo

The second time, Hurlburt was with his buddies at the W Hotel nightclub, when he heard his friend say, "Hey, look at that gorgeous blonde." He turned around and saw a woman he recognized. He couldn't believe his luck. She was no longer dating his roommate, and he saw the perfect opportunity to make a move.

"Just as I was about to go talk to her I noticed the inevitable — Anita was with a date. (She will say it wasn't a date)," he wrote weeks later in an e-mail to family.

"It wasn't a date," Segalstad explains as she retells their story.

She was at the W with a man who wasn't her date, and then the man who wasn't her date disappeared to the dance floor. So she stood there alone with her back to Hurlburt's group, deciding whether to stay or go.

Hurlburt jumped over the back of the booth where he was sitting and told his friends he had to "see about some girl," a line he borrowed from "Good Will Hunting." He tapped her on the shoulder.

"I said, 'Hi — it's Ivan,' " he wrote. "She looked at me with puzzlement, obviously having no memory of meeting me. I was crushed but was not about to give up — after some memory jogging she finally did remember me. The rest of the story is still unbelievable to me."

The short version? "A very quick love at first sight," Segalstad says. "Well, love at first sight for him — at second sight for me."

Which is to say after a three-week courtship and 12-day engagement, she is no longer Miss Segalstad. She is Mrs. Hurlburt.

To back up a little, she knew there was something special about him when she dressed up for their first date and he arrived in jeans and a T-shirt and told her she looked beautiful, but she might want to change clothes. He had planned a picnic at Kaka'ako Waterfront Park. They talked as if they had known each other forever.

He asked her to spend the next weekend with him on Lana'i, and the hotel mistakenly had registered them as Mr. and Mrs. Hurlburt. He had flowers waiting for her, and the card was addressed to "Mrs. Anita Hurlburt."

He claimed it was a mix-up. Maybe it wasn't.

That week, they danced to a Billie Holiday CD in his room.

The next weekend, he took her to Hilo, where quick-footed, 28-year-old Hurlburt finished eighth in the Big Island International Marathon. The next day, he took her to a restaurant where the same Billie Holiday CD was playing. That's where he proposed.

They hadn't even said "I love you" yet. She needed some time to think about the proposal, because it was all happening so quickly. It took 24 hours before she said yes.

He called her parents in Norway to ask for her hand, and they were shocked but supportive. The couple thought about waiting until next year to get married. But Hurlburt, an Army captain, was being sent to Afghanistan, and they decided not to wait. They were going to go to the courthouse.

Hurlburt called his parents, and it just so happened they were coming to Maui on a free trip and were going to stop on O'ahu to say goodbye before he deployed. They said they were happy he was going to get married and they wanted to attend the ceremony.

"Ceremony?" Hurlburt said. Uh, yes, of course. He hung up, flipped through the Yellow Pages and in a matter of hours had the wedding planned.

They exchanged vows April 23 at the Hale Koa Hotel in a ceremony slightly delayed because of a bomb scare near the property. They spent their first week as newlyweds packing up his household goods. A week later, the groom left for Afghanistan.

Mrs. Hurlburt, 23, an English student at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, will spend August in Nebraska with her new in-laws.

"The whole family is coming in," she said. "Everyone wants to meet me. It's kind of scary."

If Hurlburt gets leave during his deployment, they plan to meet in Norway, where he will meet her parents. They also want to have a formal ceremony in Norway when his deployment is over next summer. For now, they're getting by on e-mail and phone calls.

"Ivan and I sort of feel like our lives were really boring before we met each other," she said. "I told him he saved me from the horrible dragon of boredom. He's my knight."

Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships. If you'd like her to tell your love story next, write to tleach@honoluluadvertiser.com, call 525-8026 or mail your photo and details to Love Stories, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.