(Still) Crazy in Love! Shirre & Kéto Celebrate 1 Year!

One year ago today, I began officially dating Shirre A. (Miller) on Saturday, September 15, 2007. So today is another good day in a long sequence of good days. I had met Shirre earlier in June 2007 when she began attending Black on Black Rhyme, Tampa's largest spoken word, open mic poetry show. At the time, I was co-hosting BoBR along with LIFE. I was also learning the art of DJ'ng from Forge as he prepared to leave the state to begin his Masters degree in Social Sciences. I remember the first night Shirre was at the show, she walked on stage and read a piece which was so passionate and heart-felt that the audience immediately loved her. I knew there was something about her, and I went over to say hello and congratulate her during the show. Certainly as a 28-year-old male, I had met quite a few attractive women in 7 years of community college, BS studies & MBA studies, and because of my professional networking, community service, and nightlife interests, I was often making their acquaintance. However, Shirre was different. I would notice that whenever Shirre walked in a room, everyone took notice. She was amazingly beautiful and commanded attention without being arrogant or self-absorbed. There are some women who beg for attention and others who simply take it by virtue of their personality. I would notice that she seemed at ease with everyone, and people genuinely liked her. There were also quite a few men who were enamored with her, but she didn't seem to be easily impressed by their advances. That's saying quite a bit, because in my brief life experiences I have observed how easily women either lose their head or take advantage of the situation when everyone wants to know their name. Those who don't go crazy over the attention tend to be the ones who are "grown-up", already have goals, and are self confident and true to their values. By late July, Shirre was still attending BoBR every Tuesday night, we would chat from time to time, then she mentioned that she loved tea, so I asked her out for tea on a weekend. It turned out that one of her relatives died that weekend, so we couldn't get together. But we did keep up by phone during the weeks that followed. We would talk for quite a while on the phone and the chemistry was awesome. We could talk for a long time and not worry about whether one could keep the other's interest or whether we would run out of words. By August I invited her to several of my events and we went to breakfast and dinner a few times. In early September, we reached a critical point based on a disagreement, and I decided to just chill out for a bit. I have always believed that as far as dating that we should follow our heart while having faith that God will send the person that is right for us. However, we should not get bent out of shape or become hysterical when things don't happen as we would like, because I strongly feel that if a relationship is meant to be, then nothing can separate two people. Sometimes you just have to sit back and be patient. If the other person is not for you, then hopefully you both enjoyed each other's company, and there are no hard feelings, but at some point you have to move on.

It turned out, that we were still thinking about each other but not communicating. So Shirre surprised me by showing up at Cater 2 You Tampa, a unique upscale event for women started by my friend, Rocky Cusseaux, featuring massages of your choice, music, fine wine & gourmet desserts. I was as glad to see her as she was to see me. That evening we talked about the things that we had in common and decided to go ahead and start dating. From that point, there were other interests, but I found that I wanted to see less and less of other women and focus on Shirre instead. It seemed like we had known each other for years, and our souls were in a sense linked, though we had only met recently. As the weeks went on, we instinctively knew how to "feel" each other. If something was wrong, or one was thinking about the other, one of us would pick up the phone at that exact moment--as if we were telepathically connected. On September 19th, I casually introduced Shirre to Ma at my monthly forum, Wide aWoke Wednesday. By October we were seeing each other exclusively and I was just crazy about her, but aware based on her recent history that she was not at that point ready for a long-term relationship. But again, instead of being aggressive, I wanted to just see what would happen. Later in October, we discussed where we both were in the relationship and decided to continue the relationship based on our mutual love. I knew that I really loved her and there was no doubt that I wanted to marry her, but did she want the same thing? In early November, we discussed marriage, and we agreed that that was what we both wanted to do, though being of a practical business mind, I suggested that we wait two years to get married. I had never before considered marrying a woman who already had children, but because I loved her so much, I was willing to see if it all made sense.

On November 17, Shirre invited me to a family seafood cookout at her brother's house in Bartow. We met her 3 children, Reuben (11), Lanay (10), and Jada (7). They seemed so polite and respectful that I couldn't believe it. Certainly, I thought, their mother had told them to, "Be good today and don't chase away the new guy--or else." But we got along well--thanks in part to their mother having prepared them to meet me--and in future interactions they were always the same and made me feel at home. I met her mother also, and I was glad that the family gave me their stamp of approval. The next weekend, Shirre & her family invited me to Thanksgiving Dinner, so I brought my Mom with me to meet the family as well. She had some misgivings (as I found out later, this is quite common among mothers and mothers-in-law), but I enjoyed the time and decided not to worry about it. I figured that eventually Ma would love Shirre as much as I did.

Shirre & I continued to date and soon decided that waiting two years was a bad, bad idea, so we decided on November 2008 as the tentative wedding date, then a few weeks later moved up the date to August 19, 2008, then June/July. By the last week of January 2008 we had decided on a final date for our wedding. We would get married on my Birthday, April 26, 2008. So on Shirre's 27th Birthday, February 2, we had breakfast with the children & later that day we went to the jewelry store in Tampa where we picked out the rings and ended the day with a romantic engagement dinner at Bonefish Grill in Brandon. From that day the wedding day was our focal point. We made wedding task lists & financial spreadsheets to determine how much money should be outlaid and when, called each other, identified wedding vendors and service providers who were friends or business associates of ours, and set up consultation visits with them to determine if their reputation and quality matched their price. We scheduled marriage counseling with our Bishop at my church, but before that we sat down and over several days wrote out questions and answers about finances, raising and disciplining children, family, and real-estate property. (As I said, I do have a practical mind, and I'm aware that just being in love is not enough. I wanted to make sure that we could pay the bills too.) We hired Shirre's cousin Sherrita & husband Prinshon Dension as wedding planners. We also hired Tynese Randolph, a dear family friend as wedding consultant/bride's stress reliever. We looked for wedding dresses in Winter Haven and Orlando, and Shirre tried 3 dresses before finally deciding on one. We had to plan and pay for a wedding in 3 months instead of the customary 6, 9, or 12 months in advance that most couples have to plan their wedding, but we were excited, and couldn't wait! We also hired poet, Wally B (my "cousin") who interviewed us so that he could write a wedding poem for us, "At Last", and whose wife, Charmaine and mother, Aunt Frances provided an incredible wedding rehearsal dinner for the wedding party, my friend Marcie, who is an amazing songstress, one of my best friends, Motown Maurice for videography & Karen's Kamera for photography. Meanwhile, Bishop Matthew Williams, my pastor, had Rev. A.L. Wingfield provide marriage counseling for us, and he agreed to marry us since Bishop would be out of town on our wedding weekend. We had marriage counseling on April 6, 10, and 12, and the advice we were given on communication, family, finance, love, letting go of past history to embrace the present, etc. only strengthened our resolve and love for each other.

Finally, our wedding day arrived on April 26, 2008, 2:00pm at Brown Memorial COGIC in Tampa and our theme was "At Last". I was ready, thanks to my best men and former college classmates, Mark and Gary who were indispensable friends. (Yes, I lost my wedding ring that morning, and they found it and hid it while I sweated). After that I really wasn't nervous, until about 1:50pm, and Mark advised me to pinch my hands to relieve tension. I knew that either I had made the best decision ever or the worst decision of my life. The service was beautiful and lasted about 20 minutes from the time groom and best man walked onto the platform until the time Shirre & I walked down the aisle as husband and wife. Several hundred of our closest friends and family were in attendance, and afterward we had a 1 1/2 hour standing meet & greet reception with a receiving line to mingle with our friends and family. April 27-May 2 we honeymooned in Las Vegas, the City of Lights! Without a doubt, we had an incredibly relaxing and wonderful time, and closed on our newly built townhouse condo while staying at Las Vegas' largest hotel, the MGM Grand.

For pictures of Shirre & Kéto's Wedding, Engagement, and Honeymoon, please logon the following Facebook photo albums: Wedding 4-26-08 by Karen's Kamera [Part 1] , Wedding 4-26-08 by Karen's Kamera [Part 2] , Wedding 4-26-08 by Karen's Kamera [Part 3] , Meet & Greet by Karen's Kamera 4-26-08 , Shirre & Kéto Meet & Greet Slideshow 4-26-08 , Shirre & Kéto's Honeymoon, 4/27-5/2/08 , Shirre & Kéto's Honeymoon, 4/27-5/2/08, Part 2 , Shirre & Kéto's Honeymoon, 4/27-5/2/08, Part 3 , Shirre & Kéto's Honeymoon, 4/27-5/2/08, Part 4 , Shirre & Kéto's Honeymoon, 4/27-5/2/08, Part 5 , Shirre & Kéto's Honeymoon, 4/27-5/2/08, Part 6 .