01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, October 19, 2003

Michell Ruggiero and Kevin Givens

Beavertail State Park, Jamestown

8.9.03

Kevin Givens and Michell Ruggiero were high school sweethearts -- twenty years ago, at Warwick Veterans Memorial High School. She was captain of the cheerleaders, he was captain of the football team, and they were inseparable. Their classmates voted them "class couple," and in her senior yearbook, Mimi (which is what everyone calls Michell) listed as her future goal "to someday marry Kevin Givens." That was 1981.

"But after high school, I went away to college and Kevin joined the Air Force," says Mimi.

"Twenty years later, in early 2001, he e-mails me and asks if I want to have a cup of coffee. I said yes."

That cup of coffee turned into dating, again, and less than a year later, they got engaged.

Kevin is an electrical engineer at General Dynamics; Mimi is a teacher at Gallagher Middle School in Smithfield. He proposed at Trattoria Simpatico in Jamestown (they're having their reception there today). "I didn't even do my hair," says Mimi. "He said, 'You know, we need a night out,' and I said 'OK,' wadded my hair up with a scrunchee, and he proposed. I was totally surprised."

When asked what it felt like falling in love all over again, Kevin says: "It was strange and familiar at the same time. It was like meeting someone new, meeting someone for the first time, yet you already know them!" As for today, he says, "I'm really nervous -- nervous and excited -- I've waited 20 years for this to happen."

The couple's wedding party consists of their four teenaged children. Mimi has three: Jennifer 13, Ray 15, Adam 17; Kevin has one: Brittany, 13. "Adam and Ray still play football on the field I used to cheerlead for Kevin on," says Mimi.

Adam will play guitar, the other three are doing readings. The couple's mothers are witnesses. The wedding guest list has grown from immediate family only to 80 some guests.

The morning sky at Beavertail holds dark clouds, and a light drizzle is falling. A tent has been erected, just in case, and, for now, about 50 chairs are set up under that tent. But fifteen minutes before the ceremony is to begin, the clouds part, the sun comes out, and Mimi's two sons move the chairs into the open air -- the way their mother had wanted it to be.

"They have learned that falling in love is like the tide, rising and falling, but always remaining steadfast," says the minister during the ceremony.

And Mimi sums it up: "Sometimes I guess we have to wait a while before our dreams come true -- talk about delayed gratification!"