From foreign exchange dates to exchange of vows
“I did not like him,” Melissa Hofmann says, referring to Pierre Tannoux. He was an exchange student staying with her family in Bamberg, Germany, in the summer of 1998. Two decades later, they are traveling the U.S. together.
“Her brother is a year older than me,” Pierre says of his visit to Germany as a student. “He came to my house, then I came to her house.”
“I was 14. … My mom got him all the treats and let him watch the Tour de France all day,” privileges not normally granted at home, Melissa says.
Two years later, Melissa was an exchange student and stayed with a girl in Pierre’s hometown of Montauban-de-Bretagne, France. The young people of the village gathered often at night, and “we started dating that summer,” Pierre says.
The exchange program was started a generation before Melissa and Pierre were born. In an effort to continue restoring friendship between Germany and France after World War II, Pierre’s father, who was head of their town band in France, put an advertisement in a German newspaper suggesting an exchange with a German band. “The person who responded was her grandfather,” Pierre says.
“My grandparents were host to his family and his parents were host to my family,” Melissa says. Other band members also welcomed musicians’ families into their homes and they became good friends over the years. Though the band exchanges faded in the early 1980s, the families continued hosting each other’s children to enable them to have an experience living abroad.
After her summer in Montauban-de-Bretagne, Melissa was determined to study in France, and in 2001, she went back for a year of high school classes in Pierre’s hometown. Two years older than Melissa, Pierre was away at college at the time, but she stayed with his parents, and they continued dating when he came home on the weekends. “I ended up living there for two years,” and she earned her high school diploma in France, Melissa says, though her friends thought she was crazy when she said she wanted to study abroad.
Melissa returned to Bamberg to pursue a degree in education. Living 12 hours away from each other by car, she and Pierre tried to catch rides with other families from the exchange program when they traveled between their towns.
When Pierre graduated in 2006 with his master’s in business administration, he began working in central France, not far from Paris. With airlines offering inexpensive deals to travel to the capital city, Pierre and Melissa booked flights to meet in Paris for a year. In 2007, he began working in Düsseldorf, 3½ hours by car from Bamberg. For two years, she drove to see him, Melissa says.
In January 2009, Melissa and Pierre explored Mexico on vacation. Walking the beach, Pierre drew a heart in the sand, suggested that they hug inside the heart, and dropped down on one knee and proposed. “I was not at all expecting it,” Melissa says. She had mentioned marriage once, “but he didn’t want to talk about it.”
Pierre had the ring made two months ahead and started saving for it “since I started working,” he says. In April, they obtained their marriage license to ensure that she would not be sent far away for her two years of student teaching. “They send you to not very nice schools for not a lot of salary,” but “it forms you,” and she was happy to be placed in Düsseldorf.
On August 7, 2010, they celebrated with a formal wedding in Pierre’s hometown in France. “We tried to make it easy” by having the event the week after the exchange, “so the Germans could stay for vacation,” Melissa says. During her school break in October, the newlyweds went to Sri Lanka and Maldives.
It is common when traveling to encounter people from Bretagne, Pierre says. “They say we have the Sailor’s Soul,” because natives travel extensively. He was traveling all over the world for his job in 2011, while Melissa was teaching and expecting their first child. “I left the company and worked for a startup,” when their son Louis was born. But not for long.
After a year and a half away from Henkel, his previous employer, Pierre was offered a position in the United States. With their 20-month-old son and Melissa expecting their second child, they ventured to Lakewood, Ohio, for Pierre’s job in Cleveland. In July 2017, he was promoted to vice president of marketing, assigned to Rocky Hill, and they moved to West Hartford with three young sons.
Melissa had taught in Ohio, and after settling into their first home in Connecticut, she started teaching Spanish and French at Renbrook School in West Hartford, taking Louis, 6, and Henri, 4, with her, and dropping Jean, 2½, at day care. When Pierre is home, “I get everybody ready” and give them breakfast, but “very often I’m traveling,” he says. This year, he’s been to China, India three times, and Dublin and Germany several times, with more trips ahead. “Mostly I leave on Sunday and come back Friday night.”
“I usually speak German when Pierre’s not here,” Melissa says. “Pierre and I always speak French when we are all together.” Learning English by living here, their boys are already trilingual.
The center of their new town resembles the plazas and towns in Europe, leading the young family to walk often to the hub of West Hartford, Melissa says. They also like being close to New York and Boston, and have explored Chicago, Niagara Falls, Gettysburg, Penn., Washington, D.C., and the Gulf Coast of Florida. They miss their families, especially on birthdays and holidays, however, and with none of their relatives willing to leave home for Christmas, Melissa, Pierre and their boys are going to the French Caribbean region of Guadalupe for the December school break.
They spend two weeks vacationing with Pierre’s family in France in July, after which Melissa stays another 4-5 weeks in Bamberg with her family. Locally, they hike up to Heublein Tower in Simsbury or around the local reservoirs and go to the Connecticut shore in the summer. They plan to get out West to see the national parks as well.
“We have the same vision. We complete each other,” Melissa says.
“We both like meeting new people, travel, and discovering new things,” says Pierre, who plays guitar, sings, and has written songs for Melissa. Pierre was in a rock band and records songs he composes. “He’s just a nice guy, friendly, social. … He has a good heart and he’s a good dad.” As a clarinet player, “I more enjoyed the company of the orchestra,” Melissa says.
“She has a very big heart. She cares about people,” Pierre says, and as he’s observed since she was 14, “She’s very driven.” When she says she is going to do something, nothing is going to stop her. Possessing the same adventurous Sailor’s Soul, Melissa and Pierre are steering their ship together on their new voyage on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean.