( ENSPIRE Lifestyle ) A Couples Date Night of Love
In the mood for love? How about a beautiful date night that turns into an amazing experience? That’s what founders Elliot and Michele Allen of “Couples Night of Love’ want to create for all couples. The couple for couples strategically created this event, whether married, dating, engaged, or even common law. The foundation behind their event is to remind couples to Rewind, Reset, and Rejuvenate back into their relationships.
It is a new year, and nothing wrong with looking to improve the quality of your relationships. Founders Elliot and Michele Allen have created a space to build healthy relationships. They have their own experience with each other to share with other couples. The Allens are all about being intentional with your partner and have created that for a particular audience.
The couple sat with us to share their unique love story and how they created this amazing event for couples.
Michele Allen: I love our love story. I’m the girl next door. He’s the boy next door. We grew up together, but I didn’t like him like that until I left for college. I went to Florida for Nursing School, and 9/11 occurred. I called everyone in New York and checked in on him because I knew he worked in the city and all my loved ones, and since then, we have been talking ever since. That was 20 years ago; we have been married for 17 years.
Elliot: Couples Night of Love came to me from a night of listening to some R&B music. As Michele mentioned, we’ve been married for 17 years, and I’m an R&B guy, so I love 90’s music. While listening to it, this feeling overcame me, and I just remembered the special moments and times my wife and I had. But life moves so fast in relationships; sometimes, you need that reminder. I got to make sure my wife is at the forefront of my life, and she knows it. So, I want other people to feel what I’m feeling that night to rewind, refresh and rejuvenate.
As in-person events are slowly opening up, Team Allen shares that even before Covid, they made sure their events were intentionally small and intimate.
Michele: Essentially, in 2020, we got our 4th annual CNOL in February, right before the pandemic hit in March 2020. Of course, we had to wait for venues to re-open, so the last year 2022, was our 5th annual CNOL. And we always kept our events small and intimate, not because of covid, but so we could focus on our loved ones across the table. Also, as hosts, we could focus on you guys and ensure you get the experience you need. So, this year we are only opening to 10-15 couples.
The couple shares how business, careers, family, and other life obligations can get in the way of spending time with our mates, which is why this year’s theme is special and dear to them.
Elliot: Well, this year’s theme is near and dear to us. We focus on couples who spend much time out of the house and away from each other due to careers. This is something people experience quite a bit. We spend a lot of time out of the house busy with our careers, and the person who suffers the most is the person who you are closest to, and it is a form of saying, ‘I love you, but I got to do what I got to do.’ And we have a night dedicated to saying, ‘I know I’m working a lot of hours, but you are why I’m working so hard to improve our lives. I love my life, but I love my life with my wife.’ So that’s the theme of CNOL 2023.
Michele: And as we said, it’s a personal theme because we are them, and they are us. My husband and I work schedules are crazy, with responsibilities of taking care of families, things that keep us away from each other, and we can’t be the only ones (laughter), so that’s our theme this year.
Couples lose their passion because “life be lifting,” so it’s hard we’re based in New York, and as New Yorkers, we’re always going and going, and we don’t stop. Sometimes you don’t realize you’re in this rat race, and you do it again the next day. So, it was like, ‘you know what, we got to make a change. Someone must be reminded of this change, and that’s where CNOL comes in. We’re trying to save and build the family foundation.
Elliot: Michele and I have gone to great lengths and created love challenges during CNOL. For example, we have a music challenge dedicated to their other half, and they don’t know about it. We also have tables specially set up where couples can have intimate conversations with each other. We had one couple who attended our event last year, and a week later, we heard from them, and they said “on that night, they hadn’t had a good conversation with each other like that in fifteen years’ sometimes it’s the ambiance and the music that created the spark.
So, if you and your better half would like to attend this amazing event, here is the breakdown of the criteria and what you can expect in person
Michele: The basic criterion for the event is you must be a couple in a relationship, whether married, dating, engaged even common law to those who have been together forever, just have not walked down the aisle. So basically, we want the couples dating or in long-term relationships to look at our married couples and see that there are healthy marriages out there, and that’s another reason why we initially started CNOL to show there are healthy marriages, not perfect because we didn’t say perfect but happy and healthy. We want to be an example of that.
Elliot: It’s certainly a reminder, and that’s the mindset we want to give people back because, as Michele said earlier, we never try to pretend not a CNOL couple; we are! CNOL works because when we sit down and go over what we want to do and accomplish, we look at where we’re struggling; therefore, mindset is a big thing for us. It’s the key to everything. I’ll give an example I like to use. I will use this from a male’s standpoint, anything she asks us to do, we’re in that dating stage, and I love the restaurant, Roy Rogers. There are no more Roy Rogers in New York; the closest one is on the NJ Turnpike. Now, if you are dating somebody, your lady says, “I want some Roy Rogers.” You jump right in your car and get some Roy Rogers and be like, baby, whatever you like. And that is what CNOL is about from a male perspective; even if you are 15-20 years in the marriage and building a life and children together, no matter how busy you are, you still get your girl whatever she likes. It’s to remind the fellas that it wasn’t about the food, it wasn’t about Roy Rogers, but that she asked me to do something, and I was willing to do anything for her.
Team Allen strongly believes in the power of love and marriage and understands that there is no perfect marriage, but there is a chance to refresh, rejuvenate and rewind at this event.
Elliot: I believe the institution of marriage is very sacred and provides so much into our lives as individuals. We lost that sense of having a partnership, and we must understand what that means to have a life partner. One of the misconceptions about CNOL is that people think it’s one big love fest, and it’s not that. We ask the question, how do you get through adversity? What is it about getting through adversity with your life partner? And that’s the power of marriage because life will always deal us some exceedingly difficult times, but when you understand that I am looking for a life partner to get me through these challenges, that is something special!
Michele: Come because you need that refresher. Attend because you want to be intentional; you know you want to look your partner in the eye and show them that love. We want to help you do that. Not one couple in the five years we have hosted CNOL said they had a bad experience. They always said they had a fun time and positive results in their marriages or relationships. And someone returns in some form or fashion that this is what they needed.
The 6th Annual Couples Night of Love will be held on Saturday, February 11th, 2023, at the Millridge Inn in Long Island, New York, from 6-11 pm. The couple also has an upcoming workshop following the event later in the year and a podcast called You Gotta Love LOVE where they share advice and stories on love.
For more information on this dynamic upcoming event, visit www.mentalconditioningmovement.com
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