Lily Aldrin

Lily Aldrin is a fictional character created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by American actress Alyson Hannigan.

Character History
She is a kindergarten teacher and amateur painter. She is married to Marshall Eriksen and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Lily is the daughter of Janice Aldrin and the granddaughter of a woman named Lois.

She met Marshall during her freshman year at Wesleyan University in 1996 and dated him throughout her college years. The two became engaged in the fall of 2005, as portrayed in the series pilot. Towards the end of the first season, she reveals to Robin that she has been having second thoughts about getting married without having experienced much else of life before Marshall. Those doubts intensify, and she acts upon them, applying for a painting fellowship on the West Coast. She originally tells Ted she decided not to go through with the application, but Marshall finds out she did and was accepted. After arguing the point on and off, with several pause breaks in between for drinks, dinner at Red Lobster, and sex, Lily cannot promise Marshall that she would return to him after the three-month fellowship, and the engagement ends.

She later confesses that her decision to leave was a mistake, but it takes several episodes until Marshall re-embraces her and their romantic relationship. Soon after, they resume their engagement. Episode 10 of season 2 implies that within a year, Marshall and Lily will be married. They finally married in "Something Borrowed," the penultimate episode of the second season.

In episode 21 of season 1, she says that Ted is her best friend.

She was chosen as the Slap Bet Commissioner for the slap bet between Marshall and Barney.

She despises the word "moist" and is characterized as a "loud chewer" by Ted.

In the third season, it is revealed that Lily is a shopaholic, and goes shopping (particularly for shoes and boots) when something bad happens. Her multiple credit cards are kept in a "box of shame," which is a pink shoebox. This fact is subtly hinted at during the season one episode Cupcake. Upon ruining a wedding dress Lily is asked "How will you be paying?" and her reply indicates that she has several credit cards at her disposal.

Lily, along with Ted and Marshall, occasionally indulged in "sandwiches" (Future Ted's euphemism for marijuana) during college and at their 20th college reunion.

Romantic Interests

 * Marshall Eriksen : Marshall and Lily met on their first day at Wesleyan University. They dated, fell in love and were together for 10 years. They planned to get married earlier but Lily got cold feet and backed out, deciding instead to go to San Francisco for an internship. She later returns, however Marshall refuses to take her back at first, but they soon reunite. The first time they are married for about 12 seconds while at sea before being unmarried, the second time they are married out in a garden surrounded by their closest friends and the third time, minutes after their second wedding, they go inside for a third one, that had been going horribly wrong. Lily and Marshall lost their virginity to each other. She plans to keep her maiden name.
 * Scooter : Scooter, or 'Bill' as he is now known, was Lily's high school boyfriend whom she only dated because he looked like Kurt Cobain. He crashes Lily & Marshall's wedding in hopes of winning Lily back. He fails miserably. He also almost had sex with Lily before she started seeing Marshall. Scooter was played by David Burtka (who is Neil Patrick Harris' partner).
 * Too-Much-Tongue-Guy : Made out with Lily at a Freshmen mixer before she met Marshall. This was suspected to be Ted, but this was disproven.

Character Traits
Lily is often portrayed to be most morally-inclined member of the five-some. She is rarely impressed by Barney's antics, shows a consistent dislike for people not being true to themselves (When Marshall took the "soul-destroying corporate job) and is often horrified by the use of bad language (especially when directed at her). Despite this, she is prone to out-bursts related to sexual language and/or harsh slang words. Of the couple, Lily is the impulsive one; Marshall is often required to be the voice of reason. She is often curious about trying out new things. She finds it easy to sustain platonic friendships with both males and females, although she is usually found in the company of men.