Nothing better than a love letter! Sarah Drew revealed how her husband of 16 years, Peter Lanfer, won her over — and their romance is a true classic.
The Grey’s Anatomy alum, 37, attended The Hollywood Reporter’s Emmy Nominees party on Friday, September 14, when she touched on her romance with the UCLA lecturer. “We worked at a camp together as camp counselors, and then he wooed me with hand-written letters for eight months before we saw each other again. Super old-fashioned,” she told Us at the event, held at the Avra Beverly Hills Estiatorio. “And what’s fun right now is, I’m in the middle of shooting a Christmas romantic comedy about two people falling in love through hand-written letters, which is why I kind of decided to go do that movie — because it reminded me of my story with my husband.”
Drew also revealed the swoon-worthy way Lanfer proposed — a sweet moment that the actress almost botched! “Our first date after eight months of correspondence was to take a train into Manhattan and see the play Wit with Judith Light starring in the role. It’s about a professor of the poetry of John Donne, and the week leading up to his proposal, he gave me a poem and a gift each day. … The final one was supposed to be a poem by John Donne and then the ring, but I actually ruined it all because I like, patted him down and felt the ring box beforehand. It was so bad,” she admitted. “I just needed to know what was about to happen.”
“So I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready. I mean … I am ready, I love you.’ And he’s like, ‘OK, this is not about creating a perfect moment. This is just about me telling you that I love you.’ And then he opened the box, and the ring actually went flying out and almost fell down the boardwalk into the sea never to be found again,” Drew continued. “But we got it, and we threw it on my finger and hugged, and we’re just … crying all over each other. It was so beautiful, and that’s just who he is. He’s a romantic, through and through.”
The couple — who share son Micah, 6, and daughter Hannah, 3 — started dating before Drew got into acting, something the Everwood star is thankful for. “It is pretty mad,” she told Us. “I did escape unscathed from the dating world.”
With reporting by Antonia Blyth
