Our Story

Natalie: When I first moved to California, I was living in LA and waiting for my company’s new San Francisco office to be built. I was flying up every week to meet with my new clients and one day in April, I had a transition meeting over at Clorox. Before the meeting I talked to one of my co-workers and she said that Michael was really cute, but I wasn’t really expecting anything.

Michael: Because all of your other clients are old men.

Natalie:Yes, that’s true. They are mostly all older men.

Michael: So on the same day, I woke up in a very bad mood and I had a very rough day at work. At 3:00 I got a call from my buddy Roger, who I went to the Super Bowl with and who worked for a company called News America. He was transitioning off of the Clorox account so he wanted me to meet the new sales rep. I had forgotten about the meeting and I was ready to blow it off, but being the good sales man he is, Roger tried to talk me into it. So I said I would go under the condition that we had the meeting in a bar. And I asked him if this “new girl” was cool and if she’d be down to meet in a bar or if we’d need to have the meeting in the office. And Roger said no and that Natalie was cool so I agreed to go to the meeting because…

Natalie: Because you got free beer.

Michael: Yes, because I got free beer. (Laughs) So I walk downstairs….and when I saw Natalie I thought she was cute, but she looked a little uptight because she was wearing her suit. (Natalie laughs). And I thought, oh she’s cute, but we probably have nothing in common. So we all went out to the bar and at one point all of the other people we were with were on their Blackberries and Natalie and I started talking about concerts. Natalie told me that she went to see Phish at Coventry and we found out we’d been to a couple of the same Phish shows. She told me about sleeping in the mud at Coventry and I was like “Wow, she slept in the mud? I never would have guessed that.” So I began thinking that maybe there was more to this girl than just that blue suit!

Natalie: It wasn’t blue, it was gray.

Michael: No, it was the baby blue one, right?

Natalie: No, that was our second meeting.

Michael:Oh ya, you’re right. It was gray.

Natalie:Well, when Michael walked down to the lobby to meet me I thought that Michael seemed really cool. We went to the bar and we totally hit it off, we weren’t talking about work at all. And to me, it almost felt like I was on a first date…but my boss was there. Like, kind of weird. But Michael and I found out very quickly that we had a lot in common. I was about to be new to the city and I didn’t know ANYONE in San Francisco so I was excited to meet someone who had similar interests that I did. So that was on a Friday, which was actually the very first time I’d ever been to San Francisco. The next Monday I got an email from Michael, the kind of email that I’m supposed to be sending to my clients, not my clients sending to me, which said that had a good time meeting me and that I should let him know when I get into town so that we could go see a show together. I moved to San Francisco a month later and a week or so after that we decided to have another meeting at a bar, so we went to Zeitgeist for a drink. At Zeitgeist we decided to go see Stephen Malkmus play at the Fillmore on June…15th?

Michael: Yes, and then our next date was on the 19th.

Natalie: Right, we had decided to go see Les Claypool on the 19th.

Michael: At the Independent.

Natalie:Yes, at the Independent. So during the Stephen Malkmus show, Michael leaned over and he said, “Hey, before the Les Claypool show we should go somewhere and grab dinner!” and I said, “Ya that would be great!” because I didn’t know anyone else in the city and I was dying to go out to dinner. Then a few minutes later he leaned back over and said, “Oh! And before dinner I can take you to go see a couple of viewpoints.” And I began to wonder, “is this a date??” I didn’t know if it was a date or not….was it a date?

Michael: well, it turned into a date.

Natalie: (laughs) Well, regardless, we went to see the viewpoints, we went out to sushi and then we went to the Les Claypool show and it was a great time. After the show, I still wasn’t sure if it was a date or not, so I called Devon to ask her. Devon asked me what we did and when I told her that Michael had taken me to see the sunset she confirmed that it was, in fact, a date.

Michael: I honestly didn’t plan for that. It was fate I guess. From the beginning our mutual love of live music, good food, and exploring California got us to spend a lot of time together. Who would have thought that the girl in the gray suit was so cool? Good thing I decided to go to that meeting!

Natalie: And we lived happily ever after.

THE PROPOSAL

By Natalie

I spent the first weekend in May hosting Natalie Talarico’s bachelorette party in Chicago. Part of the event included a trip to Mojo Spa in Chicago to get pampered. At Mojo, Natalie told me she thought I should get a manicure. I don't really ever get manicures because I tend to damage them the second the brush leaves my finger. But Natalie insisted that she treat me to a manicure for organizing such a fun day. I protested for a bit, but she was so convincing that I caved and settled for a buff. Besides, you don't argue with the bride! The rest of the weekend I was busy making sure everything went smoothly and having a great time, maybe a little too great of a time. In fact, when I got up at the crack of dawn to fly back to San Francisco, I was feeling a bit queasy. After a sandwich and a nap on the plane, I was feeling better and was very excited to get home to my boys. Michael said to make SURE I called him when I was on my way home from the airport. It was a beautiful sunny day and when I reached the front steps of our house, I noticed some rose petals on the front porch. Strange, I thought in my hungover-stupor, a flower must have drifted by our house! Then I realized that there were actually a lot of rose petals on the steps and they were leading to the front door. I opened the door and saw a carpet of rose petals and lit votive candles covering the hallway. Al Green’s “Let’s Get Married” was playing in the background. Wow, I thought, this is it! Every couple of feet there were notes written on gold paper that led me out to our back deck. I opened the back door to find Michael was waiting for me with chocolates, flowers, and champagne. He said lots of sweet things that I can barely remember because I was so excited! He got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said, YES! YES! YES! I kept saying “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Then when I saw the ring I said, “OH MY GOD!!!!!” It was the icing on the cake! We toasted with champagne and later that day had all our closest SF friends over for a celebration barbecue.