Happily Ever Aftering in the Valley…

Have you ever shaken hands with a princess (but only if she offers hers first)? I have. It was a firm grip, good and strong. I like that in a princess. But what else would you expect from dairy business royalty, a vocation that requires a strong hand.

Yes, we have a princess in the Valley and a fairy tale of a story, too. Brett de Vries and Megan Warner chose a special date for their wedding: 10/10/10. A centennial will roll around before that trio of tens arrives again: a special date for a special occasion, reason enough to choose a row of tens to observe a couple’s nuptials.

Brett and Megan’s tale hangs upon ice cream, it seems. Four years ago Megan was dishing it up at the Evergreen State Fair at the Purple Cow booth, and Brett had a hankering for a cold, sweet snack. Is that Kismet? Or was it sherbet? Nothing like asking for a little ice cream to break the ice. Like any good farm boy raised in dairy country, with ice cream in hand, Brett wandered into the dairy barn to check out the year’s vintage of contented cows. It wasn’t just the cows he admired there. On the walls of the barn he noticed posters promoting the Washington State Dairy industry, and there smiling at him one dimensionally was that girl in the ice cream booth. Brett instantly had a hankering for more ice cream, returned to the Purple Cow to be served again, but for whatever reason—humbled in the presence of royalty, perhaps—Brett left a second time with little more than calories for his efforts .

Sometimes courtship needs a gentle nudge from a mother, and Randy, Brett’s mom, did a little research on local dairy princesses past and present and discovered one named “Megan.” Brett’s phone number was conveniently placed in the proper channels and one day a text message appeared on his phone: Royalty calling. It’s not everyday you get a call from a bona fide princess. Best to respond.

And respond Brett did. The two agreed to meet in Snohomish just where you might expect: at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor. This time the ice was broken and after three ice cream seasons and, I imagine, a few gallons of chocolate mint (hers), chocolate (his) later, the farm boy proposed to his princess. Where, you ask? A Baskin-Robbins, of course.

So on 10/10/10 young “commoner” de Vries married a princess of the dairy. Where was the wedding? Why on a dairy farm, certainly—Megan’s parents.’ After honeymooning in Belize, Brett and Megan have brought their fairy tale here to the Valley where they will live in the former home of my old friends, Jerald and Tina Streutker. (Brett, if I have this right, is their grand-nephew and is buying the home from them.) Welcome to the Valley, Megan.  A “Royal Welcome,” I should add.For congratulations and a wedding gift, I brought the newlyweds a quart of the Valley’s purest honey. After all, Brett and Megan, love is sweet but it cannot live on ice cream alone.

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