Perry and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary this past week. I get a lot of questions on how I met Perry so I figured I would take you all down memory lane and post our engagement photos with the blurb I wrote on our wedding website on how we met. For our shoot, we went to Bishops Castle in Colorado. I rented a stunning sequin dress from Rent the Runway and Perry dressed up in the finest getup he owned. Our dear friend, Joni, took the photos and killed it on the lighting. Would you believe this castle was really, really dark? It was so fun dressing up like a queen and king for a day even though it was below freezing this day.

The story on how we met:

The first time I saw Perry was shortly after I had moved to Denver, Colorado to attend graduate school in the fall of 2010. Homesick and overwhelmed with learning how to be a student again, I decided to pursue something fun, exciting, and new with the hopes that it would connect me to a community and possibly help me make a few friends. I had seen this Afro-Brazilian martial arts called Capoeira in Flagstaff, Arizona where I had moved from. It's a high energy, dance-like-fight that incorporates break-dancing moves (although there is speculation that break-dance moves are actually inspired by Capoeira moves) indigenous instruments, and Brazilian culture and songs. It is fun!

When I first saw Perry walk through the door, I vividly remember nudging one of my new friends and asking, "Who is that?". It wasn't so much that he was wearing a tight white martial arts outfit, or the way the light reflected off of his grey-blue eyes, or even the fact that the wind gusted in behind him as he entered the studio, above all that, Perry had a particular glow about him that intrigued me from the get-go.

Flash-forward a year-and-a-half later to spring of 2012. Or wait, let's back up to New Year’s Eve of 2012 and quickly mention that Perry came to my New Year’s party. During this event, Perry embraced his silliness and decided to teach one of my best friends how to be a Capoeirista by showing her how to do a meia lua de compasso which is a swift round kick that requires great balance, timing, and speed to execute it effectively. Whelp, New Year's may have gotten to Perry because he accidentally kicked my poor friend straight in the head! Don’t worry, she was okay, laughed about it, and said the next day, "Who is your cute capoeira friend who kicked me in the head last night?”. I laughed and commented that yes, Perry was cute and that behind his back I had heard a few people even name him "Pretty Perry." However, I told her to not get ahead of herself because I was at the time "anti-relationships." This was the mentality I maintained until one crisp day in the spring when Perry asked if I wanted to carpool to our friend’s farm house for a BBQ. Now when I say carpool, you automatically think of a group of people (more than 2) riding together to a common destination, right? Right--that's what I thought too! But to Perry's devise, no one who was supposed to "carpool" showed up. So, Perry and I "carpooled" to the party.

While this story thus far depicts how we met, I think the next part of the story is the most important because it defines how many of our days go meaning I, Terra, does something ridiculous, and Perry, either shakes his head, laughs, or does both at the same time. While we were touring our friend’s property, I happen to slip (just a little) down the last stair and managed to spill the liquid (specifics aren't important) up and over the mouth of the glass and directly on to the top of my head. Now Perry did not experience the "slip" because he had already turned the corner, but when he looked back to see where I was and saw me giggling with wet hair, he got a pretty good indication of how the rest of our lives would be together, smiled, shook his head, and laughed a little at my now soaking wet bangs (which were particularly sassy that day).

And so it goes folks… I think from that moment on Perry knew that I would be an adventure or as he would say a "project" never with a dull moment; in that moment (yes I mean in that SPECIFIC moment, to give it a fairy-tail effect), I knew that I may had found someone who would embrace my Terria"isms” and simply let me be me.