48 Hours

For Better Or Worse

By David Kohn

July 5, 2001 / 10:23 AM EDT / CBS

Ninety percent of Americans says it's the one thing they want most of all: A happy marriage. Maybe that's why checking out the wedding announcements in the Sunday paper is a weekly ritual.

48 Hours went to Minneapolis and scanned the wedding announcements from June 1994 and picked three couples to see whether, eight years later, they are still happily married. Not surprisingly, only one marriage made it.

The couples spoke together, and separately, and were a bit more candid without their spouses there.

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In 1988, Kari Meyer put a difficult breakup behind her and headed north from Nebraska to Minnesota. She was starting a new job and was ready for a new life. She was introduced to Peter by friends, and they became best friends.

"And I just fell in love," says Peter. "I went home to my journal that I was keeping at the time and I wrote down I have just met the most incredible woman in the world and some day, I'm gonna marry her." Kari says she knew he was interested but didn't admit it to herself. Their friendship continued for five years. In 1993, at Peter's 40th birthday party, Kari finally told him that she was in love with him.

"He just looked at me and said I can't believe that you're telling me this now," she recalls. "I was a little upset cause I just expected him to say "Oh honey let's go get married right now." They were married in August, 1994.

Anthony and Loni Labrocca's story starts when Anthony also made the move to the twin cities from Brooklyn. It would be fate, not friendship, that connected him to Loni. They both called to get phone service, and reached the same operator. The operator set them up.

"I called him that night and we talked for three hours. I thought it was kind of weird but it's life - weird things happen," says Loni.

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"We both kind of clicked. And we both knew we just had to meet," says Anthony. They met in a park, and clicked. They were married six months later.

It was the Radisson hotel in downtown St. Paul where coworkers Tim and Stephanie Farrell's attraction to each other was instant.

"I was an operator and he worked at the front door as a doorman," says Stephanie.

"I just remember going back and just thinking 'Wow.Who is that?' and I really didn't have the guts to go and talk to her," Tim says.

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Stephanie was only 20, but certain she had found the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Although Tim and Stephanie had only known each other for four months when he proposed, they didn't plan to actually marry for another 16 months. But she got pregnant, and so they moved up the wedding. When they were married, they had known each other for seven months.

"It was the happiest day of my life, everything was just falling in to place I'm marrying this great guy," says Stephanie. "We're buying a home in a few weeks We're having a baby. Life is great."

All three couples agree that their wedding was the best day of their lives. But after that day came the honeymoon, and after the honeymoon came life.

How do the three couples fare? Find out in Part II.

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