About the bride: Marissa

Marissa Alexandra Korchynsky grew up in West Chester, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. She graduated from Penn State University. Currently, she is an IT Project Manager with IKON Office Solutions in Malvern, PA.

About the groom: James

James Henry Watson grew up in Philadelphia. He moved down south for a while to Alabama and Texas, but reappeared on the Philadelphia front at the end of 2002. He currently is a Systems Engineer at NRG Energy, splitting his time between King of Prussia, PA & Princeton, NJ. James is attending Drexel University.

Not only did Marissa and James meet while working together at SunGard, but they were hired by the same person - he must have seen something good coming!

How they met:

            Marissa:  I started my new job at SunGard at the end of June 2003.  I recently had had knee surgery, so I was still wearing my ever-so-fashionable knee brace to start my first day. 
           James:  I was thinking who is this random cutie with the big leg brace?
           Marissa:  James appeared to be Mr. Cruise Director – the lunch gatherer, the happy hour coordinator.  This job environment works for me!!!  Plus, he had orange tic-tacs at his desk.  I LOVE orange tic-tacs!!!
           James:  Yes, she is obsessed with orange tic-tacs.  I’d throw them over the cubes to her desk (awww).  So, one day we all went out for happy hour a few weeks after Marissa arrived at SunGard.  She gave me a ride to her friend Emily’s house.  I remember laughing at her because she couldn’t parallel park properly in the street!
           Marissa:  I was under pressure!  I hate when people pay too much attention to me when I parallel park!
           James:  I still laugh at her to this day when she tries to parallel park – she’s pretty funny cuz she still has issues ;) 
           Marissa:  What!  I’m a good parallel parker!  Anyways, we started talking on the phone a bit… then a lot.  Many nights I was up so late talking to James I fell asleep!  I wasn’t used to getting up so early for the new job in the city and the commute. 
           James:  She did fall asleep – a lot!!!  (And she still sleeps a lot!)
           Marissa:  hey!!!  James was lucky I was talking to him so much as I was.  When I saw he drove that big Ford truck, with the lic plate frame on the back that says “ of course its fast, dumbass”, I thought he was such a big punk!  I really did!  Little did I know that once I got to know him, he wasn’t as much of a punk as I thought :-)  He was actually a pretty good, cool and fun guy!  We didn’t really tell anyone about our secret romance blossoming at work…I was a new employee and I didn’t want it to be weird at work. 
           James:  Til one day… we went bowling with JJ.  She brought up the rules of dating and everything and that’s when I decided to bring up the conversation that night.  So that’s when we made it official…
           Marissa:  August 30th – it was Labor Day weekend.  It was all JJ’s fault we made it official :-)  People at work had their suspicions… til JJ announced it to everyone at our Company Holiday party that Dec.  The word was out!  I guess now we’re part of those statistics of couples who have met at work :-)
           James:  And so it went from there…. Til 3 years later when I proposed down in New Orleans…..