It’s one of my favorite questions to ask a couple, “How did you guys meet?” Its a great way to open up the conversation and get to know the couple better. With the birth of our second child only weeks away, this morning I caught myself thinking about how in love with Jeff I am, and it got me thinking of how it all began. So I thought I would share how it came to be between myself and the love of my life….
Me & Jeff’s love story has always been “easy”, meaning that we both feel that it has been meant to be from the beginning! Everything just fell into place for us and that so many things have always been “known”. Of course, getting that ball rolling wasn’t easy at first.
I had just gotten home after being on tour for 6 months with a metal band (I was the Production Assistant) and needed a job asap. I landed a gig working for N.I.P.P., a local concert promoter at the Ogden Theater. I had been to the Ogden before for a show prior to going on tour (with my boyfriend at the time), and thought that one of the bartenders there was the hottest thing I had ever seen…but I had this boyfriend, so that’s all it was, “a noticing”. Well imagine how happy I was, now a single girl, working at the Ogden, and here was this bartender! It took me a good month before I got up enough guts to talk to this guy and used the excuse of getting my “shift drink” as a reason to open it up. I asked him, “If I give you my number, will you call me?” He replied (in a very cool manner), “Ya, I might call ya”. The ball was now in his court, but he hadn’t called. So every time we saw each other at a show, I asked him, “You haven’t called me yet – do you need my number again? Did you lose it – are you going to call me?” Finally at one show, he mentioned how we should go on a motorcycle ride sometime. So of course, every time I saw him I asked about that ride and if he still had my number, and if he was going to call me. You get the idea that I was very persistent, right? Finally, I realized that he probably had a girlfriend, after all, he was pretty hot. He said that he did, so every time I saw him after that I asked him if he was single yet, or if he had broken up with his girlfriend, etc. – you get the idea.
So FINALLY, one day I got a call from an unknown number but didn’t answer it. It was the hot bartender! Imagine how excited I was that he had finally invited me on that motorcycle ride.
The date arrived and he showed up on this loud, tough, mean custom Harley and I remember thinking, “Oh thank goodness it’s not a crotch rocket” (those just aren’t my style). So we went to Golden for pizza and then Morrison for ice cream and just talked the whole time. We had great conversation and it was completely innocent and sweet (the girlfriend was on her way out btw).
After a couple more dates, he invited me over to his loft on 8th & Santa Fe. As soon as I walked in, I was a little taken back by this HUGE painting on his wall that he had done. It was of a partial woman’s face and she had blue hair (I had blue hair at the time – remember, I was a little “metal” girl at the time)! I, of course, asked about it and he said that “she was his true love but he didn’t finish her face because when he painted it, he didn’t know who she was at the time”. WEIRD!
That was just one of quite a few little “flags” (not red ones) that made me raise an eyebrow. Ever since I was a kid, I had always known that my “true love” would be some sort of Artist, probably a photographer (you know what they say about girls “marrying their fathers”); live in a loft and have a big dog. I also knew that he would also be so much of an Artist that he would make or at least design my wedding ring (because I am not the type that would go to the jewelry store and just pick something out – it would have to be more unique than that – but more on that later). So, back to the big dog – when visiting the loft, that’s when I met Bubba for the first time, a Rhodesian Ridgeback of 90 lbs.! He and I hit it off right away and that was a good sign for the hot bartender/photographer/biker guy I liked so much, that I was “down”. If Bubba liked me, I was golden!
From then on, we were pretty much inseparable. He had bought a house and moved out of the loft about a month after our first date, and it was then I knew he was responsible – much different than all the losers I was used to being attracted to. He was the “bad-boy that grew up”. He came from a decent family and didn’t have any “babies’ mamas” or drama in his life, and that was important to me. Plus his tattoos were pretty cool too…
I moved in 4 months later and he asked me to marry him a year after that (I’ll save the “proposal story” for another BLOG post).
That was the beginning of “Jeff & Jewels” and our True Love.
