How I met my partner: From school bells to wedding bells for Natalie and Stephen

From school-bells to wedding-bells, 35-year-old Natalie Bruton and 35-year-old Stephen Bruton from Cobh first began writing their love story in spring of 2002.

In a true enemies-to-lovers trope, Natalie, who is a special needs assistant at Bunscoil Rinn an Chabhlaigh, told The Echo, that she and her now husband, who is a manager at Eurospar, “hated each other” prior to the beginning of their 23-year-long romance.

“There was one house between my parents’ house and his parents’ house [growing up], so we were neighbours,” said Natalie.

“He was really popular in school, but I was nerdy, I was all into drama and theatre.

“We went to different schools, but I used to see him on the road.

“We hated each other but I was really good friends with his cousin, she lived in our estate too, and we used to walk to school together.

“Her parents had [a] 2002 new year’s eve party and I remember I put my feet up on his lap messing — two days later his friend texted my friend to get my number to give to him — but he was too shy to text me, so I had to text him first.

“I was having none of it — I remember he used to take like 20 minutes to text back, so I thought he was playing a game with me, but he was actually playing PlayStation, so he’d reply to me [intermittently].

“We were really innocent, we kissed for the first time at a disco — I remember the lights came on, because they used to do that slow lift setting, and I ran away from him — I was mortified.”

A few months later, the day before Natalie’s 13th birthday, Stephen decided to ask her to be his girlfriend.

“We were texting all the time after that, and I remember I told him that another boy had started texting me,” said Natalie.

“I was just trying to see his reaction — I said to Stephen that the other guy had asked me if I was his [Stephen’s] girlfriend, and he texted back saying ‘ok so do you want to’, and I was like ‘okay’.

“What I didn’t know was that his phone had died, so he had actually taken one of the lads batteries to put into his phone to text me back, and they were all sitting on the bus on the way back from a match waiting for my response.”

The pair then began navigating a long-term relationship throughout their teens, which, as any childhood romance would, was not without it’s ups and downs.

“There used to be a big green electricity box in our estate, between our houses, and the whole estate knows that as our green box — we used to stay there all night and just maul the face off each other,” said Natalie.

“Then when we were turning 18 or 19 years old, there were times that we broke up — never for longer than two weeks — but it was hard trying to maintain a relationship at that age.”

As time went on, two weeks before Natalie’s 21st birthday, the couple found out they were expecting their first child, Amelia, who is now 13-years-old.

“We couldn’t buy a pregnancy test in Cobh because everyone knew us, so we had to drive to Midleton to get one — when I came home, my parents had gone out, so I took the test, and it came up pregnant 1-2 weeks,” said Natalie.

“I always knew he would be there, but when I went out and told him, he was so shocked, he couldn’t even talk.”

Seven years later, after Natalie had attended UCC to study early childhood studies, and Stephen had taken up a new job with a drinks supplying company, the pair fell pregnant with their second child, Elijah, who is now five years old.

The following summer, in July of 2021, the couple settled into the idea of marriage, with Natalie and her mother taking to Denbar Jewellers in Midleton to look for rings.

“I always wanted a purple stone, something really unusual,” said Natalie.

“The girl in the shop had something similar in the window and it was my exact size, I just loved it — if you were looking at it from afar it looks like Princess Diana’s ring, but it’s more purple — so I put a deposit on it.”

Two weeks later, the couple, along with their children and Natalie’s parents, took a trip to Ardmore Beach in Waterford, where Stephen popped the question.

“On the way down to Ardmore, he went down with my dad, which I thought was weird, but it was because he wanted to ask him for his blessing,” said Natalie.

“When we got there, we went for a walk up a hill, and he got down on one knee — I nearly blacked out, to this day I can’t remember what he said.

“He was on the ground for so long, and I remember being like ‘get up’, but he said he wanted to make sure my dad got a good photo — he was never under so much pressure with the phone.”

A year after the couple were married in the Cobh Cathedral, followed by a function at the Commodore Hotel.

“The night before our wedding Stephen texted me and asked me to meet him at the green box in our estate for the last time as boyfriend and girlfriend — I was bawling, and so was he.

“I just love him, we’re best friends — he is literally the only person I’d want to tell everything to.”

A week before the pair celebrated their first wedding anniversary, in July of 2023, they welcomed their third child, Archie, who is now two-years-old.

The Bruton family are now working towards buying their forever home, following Stephen’s graduation from the Bachelor of Business in Retail Management Practice course at the Atlantic Technological University.