She didn’t think it was an actual date, but he did
Matt Buchanan was hunting for a girlfriend, and he went fishing for a date with Melanie Morrison.
“I didn’t know that the first two times we went out were dates,” Melanie says.
Matt and Melanie both dated other people off and on, but there had been some flirtation between them in the two years since they had arrived on the small campus on Lyon College in Batesville.
“He used to walk around the campus and yell, ‘Melanie Morrison, when are you going to marry me?’” Melanie says.
“That is a true story,” he says.
Melanie and Matt were bantering one October night in 2003, and Melanie said she had never been hunting. Matt said that if she would meet him outside the next morning at 4:45, he would take her.
Melanie showed up in front of his apartment at the appointed time, but Matt was not there.
She texted, called and knocked on his apartment door, which was unlocked — so, in exasperation, she let herself in.
“I knocked on his actual bedroom door and he was in there, asleep, like he just completely forgot,” she says. “Maybe he just didn’t think I would show up. I don’t know.”
Matt jolted awake and within minutes they were leaving in his truck.
“He drove me out to the middle of nowhere, and it started raining, and we just sat there on the ground beside a tree,” she says.
A couple of weeks later, he asked her to go fishing. He took her to the White River, where he showed her how to cast her line, baited her hook and then moved about 15 feet away to try his own luck.
“I was like, ‘OK, he’s a man of few words,’” she says. “We didn’t talk, we didn’t eat, we rode in a truck in silence and then we just sat on the pier, mostly in silence.”
Melanie assumed she had been relegated to buddy status, and when he suggested they go see a play at Murry’s Dinner Theater in Little Rock with the student activities group she expected more of the same.
“We were the president and vice president of the choir. We called ourselves the king and queen to be funny because we were in the Madrigals and we had the Madrigal feast and all that jazz,” Melanie says. “So when he suggested we go to Murry’s, I said sure. He goes, ‘It’s a date.’ And I was like, ‘Sure, it’s a date.’ I thought he meant, like, ‘Put it on the calendar, mark the date.’”
She worked out on the day of the trip, leaving just enough time for a quick change before they left. Then she saw Matt — wearing khakis and a sweater.
“Keep in mind, this boy never had on anything other than ratty jeans and thrift shop T-shirts, so this was very out of character,” she says. “And he had gotten a haircut.”
It slowly dawned on her that this actually was a date — and she sprinted off to shower and shampoo.
“I made it back, and the rest is history,” she says.
They spent part of Thanksgiving break 2004 together at Melanie’s parents’ home in Jonesboro.
He had shopped for a ring in Batesville, though his budget was tight.
“I was delivering pizza, working 40 hours a week and paying rent and going through college,” he says.
He worked out a payment plan with a jeweler so he could buy an engagement set, which he carried in the glove compartment of his truck for a month.
“She had no idea,” he says. He had the ring in his pocket as they walked around her family’s property, and though she didn’t know that, she was expecting him to propose.
“I don’t remember why I didn’t — I chickened out or something,” Matt says.
Back in Batesville the following Sunday, they sang in the choir at church and then picked up a pizza for lunch. They ate it at the same spot on the banks of the White River where they went fishing on that first date. Matt stopped her on the way back to his truck, and as she stood on a railroad tie that had washed up on the shore, he hugged her and said he was happy they were together.
As she saw him stick his hand in his pocket, she realized he was proposing.
They were married on Sept. 24, 2005, in a ceremony officiated by Melanie’s father, a retired Methodist minister. Matt grew up in Perryville and she grew up in Jonesboro, so they chose to marry in Batesville, a middle ground between the two.
The Buchanans live in Little Rock with their three daughters — Nora, 14, Ada, 12, and Willa, 5. Matt works for Bank OZK. Melanie is an art teacher at Little Rock Christian Academy.
Melanie says that though she hadn’t known she was dating Matt in the beginning, she would not have said no if she had.
“He’s cute, and he’s sweet, and, you know, I was gonna go on a date with him if he had asked,” she says. “I just didn’t know that’s what he was asking.”