During Karli Nicolle Gray and Elizabeth Catherine Smith’s first dance at their wedding, the two kept whispering to each other, “Is this over yet?” Not because they wanted the wedding to end, but because neither of them likes to dance.
That exact quality was part of Ms. Smith’s attraction to Ms. Gray when she first saw her profile on the lesbian dating app Her.
“She was cute in her pictures, and she said she doesn’t dance,” said Ms. Smith, who goes by Ellie. “I don’t dance either, so I figured we can not dance together.”
When they first connected in September 2022, Ms. Smith, 34, had just relocated for work from Boston to Portland, Ore., where Ms. Gray, 36, lived with her mother.
“She was still in the process of building her furniture,” Ms. Gray said. Ms. Smith was so distracted by settling in, that after messaging back and forth, “she suddenly ghosted for two weeks.”
Ms. Smith tried to pick things back up once she was ready. “I tried to text her again,” she said, thinking, “if she doesn’t reply, then it wasn’t meant to be.”
Ms. Gray waited a few days to reply — and a few months before giving her a hard time about the pause.
For their first date in late October 2022, they went to Laurelwood Public House & Brewery, now the Laurelwood Brewing Co., for an evening of Bavarian pretzels, ax throwing and beer.
About 30 minutes into the date, Ms. Smith sent a text letting her friends know that she was falling in love. Ms. Gray stayed over at Ms. Smith’s home that night. “We cuddled and talked and stayed up until 3 a.m.,” Ms. Gray said.
When she went home the next morning, Ms. Gray told her mother she was in love. The two have been “basically inseparable” ever since, she said. “We now have pretzels almost every month on the 26th as a sentimental date night.”
Their second date was a few days later at the Italian restaurant Montelupo Pastaria. “We officially became girlfriends after that,” Ms. Gray said.
Their third date, on Halloween, was a visit to St. Helens, Ore., where they saw Bella’s house from the movie “Twilight.” But it started to rain, and Ms. Gray felt a cold coming on.
Neither wanted the evening to end, so Ms. Smith accompanied Ms. Gray to her house to take care of her, meeting Ms. Gray’s mother for the first time. The two have been taking care of each other — and Ms. Gray’s mother, Linda Gray — ever since.
In September 2023, Ms. Smith moved in with the mother and daughter. “My mom lives below,” Ms. Gray said, explaining that her mother, who is a widow, has Parkinson’s, atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, and sciatica. “We live here to help.”
“She loves to cook for us,” Ms. Smith said of her mother-in-law. “She’s very, very sweet to me.”
“We kind of have a good life,” Ms. Gray added.
Ms. Gray is a receptionist and a private event coordinator at RECS, a pickleball club in the Portland area. She recently became a certified pickleball instructor. Ms. Gray studied kinesiology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She grew up Bandera, Texas.
Ms. Smith, who was born in Shreveport, La., is a pharmacy technician at a local pharmacy with a focus on immunizations. She has a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Western Carolina University and a master’s degree in Russian culture and the arts from European University at St. Petersburg in Russia.
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In May 2023, Ms. Smith proposed to Ms. Gray during a camping trip near Trillium Lake. She created a surprise for Ms. Gray while on a hike near Mount Hood. “I had a blown glass heart, and I hid it,” Ms. Smith said.
Only three months earlier, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, the city of Tualatin, about 12 miles outside Portland, had glass hearts hidden throughout its parks. Ms. Smith and Ms. Gray had hunted for them, to no avail.
But on the Mount Hood hike, she found the one Ms. Smith had hidden, “and said, ‘Oh my God, they hide them up here, too. I finally found one,’” Ms. Smith said. “She turned it over and saw I had written ‘marry me’ on the back.”
“I turned around and Ellie was standing there with a ring, asking me to marry her,” Ms. Gray said. “She got me good.”
The couple were married June 29 by Lesley Wise, ordained by the Universal Life Church, at Lavender Owl Farm in Canby, Ore., with 45 guests in attendance.
After the ceremony and reception at the Lavender Owl Farm, “We played pickleball in our wedding clothes at the club where I work,” Ms. Gray said, adding that most of the guests joined in. “Everything was so surreal. But I couldn’t have been happier.”
#Basically #Inseparable #Start
