'Pinch me, I’m dreaming': Edmonton couple's LEGO love story leads to jobs at toy company's headquarters
Chris Perron was feeling nervous before his first real date with Laura.
“There's that constant fear," Chris says. "What if there’s an awkward silence? ”
Laura Perron had talked with her fellow student at the University of Alberta before, but this was different.
“There were some butterflies involved,” Laura recalls with a laugh.
But then Chris suggested they spend the date building a LEGO set.
"If there’s silence, we just look for the next brick," Chris explains.
Although the industrial-design students knew they could analyze why the toy worked so well, Laura and Chris never expected how playing together would feel so good.
“That was the beginning of many LEGO dates,” Laura smiles.
And assembling the "Cinderella’s carriage" set that night was prophetic; what followed felt like a fairy tale.
So Chris decided to celebrate their love by placing a surprise inside a re-sealed LEGO box.
He asked Laura to open it. Along with all the pieces, a smaller box fell out.
“I was like, ‘We got a bonus Christmas gift inside our LEGO set!’” Laura recalls. “‘That’s awesome!'”
Then Chris opened up the smaller box and revealed an engagement ring inside.
“I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me,” Chris says, before smiling. “And she said yes!”
“I’m absolutely thrilled to spend the rest of my life with this person,” Laura says.
It turns out their life together would be led far from their home in Edmonton. Chris was offered a design job at LEGO headquarters in Denmark.
“It was a 'pinch me, I’m dreaming' scenario,” Chris says.
Laura and Chris got married in Edmonton before they moved. Their reception centrepieces were bowls filled with LEGO bricks in their wedding colours.
Like their first date, they encouraged their guests to get to know each other by playing together.
“They built a huge spaceship,” Laura laughs. “They called it the relation-ship!”
After the couple blasted off on their new life together, Laura got a LEGO job too.
She’s designed DOTS craft sets, Chris has created superhero movie sets, and now both have collaborated to make the TV set from The Office.
“It doesn’t feel like work,” Chris says. “We just enjoy each other’s company.”
“So much of our lives are just being silly and goofy together,” Laura smiles.
Laura and Chris live their life like they assemble a LEGO set — stacking one fun moment after another together, building their happily ever after.
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