LOVE STORIES
Fate can strike anywhere, even in a karaoke bar
By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer
Francis Van Rafelghem always wanted the kind of relationships his parents had.
They celebrated their 50th anniversary last summer, and Van Rafelghem, a Belgian-born bachelor pushing 40, didn't think he could live up to their standard. A few years ago, he warned them he might be single for life.
"It was funny," he said. "I kind of resigned myself to not dating."
Then there was Michelle Doo, a Hawai'i gal (and 1982 Punahou grad) pushing 40 herself, resigned to dating all the wrong people.
"She was convinced there was nobody left on the island for her to date," said her running friend, Marnie Hursty of Hawai'i Kai.
Van Rafelghem and Doo had watched all their siblings wed, seen the concerned look in their parents' eyes and figured this was the way life was going to be.
Until one night at a karaoke bar.
A mutual friend invited them both to a birthday party. Doo wasn't much for karaoke, and Van Rafelghem didn't really feel like going out that night.
But as soon as Doo walked into the party at the King Street Cafe, she laid eyes on Van Rafelghem. There he was, sitting at the bar, singing karaoke with a big grin on his face.
Doo almost forgot that she wasn't a karaoke fan. She stood there by the bar chatting with friends, unwilling to move until someone introduced them. By 11 p.m., they were still talking away and singing Doo's request, "I Got You," by Split Enz.
At the end of the night, she and Van Rafelghem exchanged business cards and went their separate ways. Days passed, and he didn't call. Doo said she wrote him off as "just another flake."
On the eighth day after they met, she went for a run with Hursty and stopped for a bite to eat at Diamond Head Grill and Market.
"We were about to order," Hursty said, "and all the sudden he shows up."
Hursty hadn't met him, and she wondered what was going on when Doo invited him to join their outdoor dinner table.
"Soon enough, he was showing up for everything," Hursty said. "I knew it was serious when he started showing up at 6 a.m. on Saturdays to run with us."
She got him back into running, and he got her back into tennis. They discovered they worked well together in the kitchen, with her cooking and him picking out the wine and cleaning up the dishes. But it was their little coincidences, like learning they lived in the same states at different times, that gave them an even greater connection.
"After the first dates," Doo said, "it was hard to not be around each other."
Soon, the lovebirds were serious about getting even more serious. When her grandmother suggested they announce their engagement in front of her family last Thanksgiving, they did.
But because they're both turning 40 this year, they didn't want to waste any time trying to start a family. So they married April 30 at the courthouse, even before the official family celebration.
"First of all, I'm not pregnant," the bride said. "Everybody asks me. But I will be 40. I'm a little old-fashioned. We wanted to cohabitate. And just in case I got pregnant, we'd be legitimate."
About 300 guests will be wishing them well June 26 at a ceremony at the bride's parents' house on Round Top Drive. Her cousin, a newly ordained minister, will be marrying them.
The bride, now Michelle Van Rafelghem, is general manager of the Locals Only store and manages her father's medical practice. The groom, who moved to Hawai'i 11 years ago after coming here on vacation and loving it, is a real estate agent with Prudential Locations. They live in Kalani Valley.
Both families are thankful the two found each other. And the groom is finally getting started on catching up to his parents.
Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships for The Advertiser. If you'd like her to tell your love story next, send the details to tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or call her at 525-8026.
