Our Story

Once upon a time there was a very pretty girl named Saki Bright who lived with her family in a big house in the woods. She was usually busy around the house cooking and cleaning and helping to take care of the other children. But sometimes, when she had some time to herself, she liked to play her guitar and write songs.

Her dad, who worked as a computer programmer, was always on the lookout for possible suitors for his daughters. He sometimes worked with a young man named Austin Taylor. He liked Austin. Since Austin was about the same age as Saki, he decided that Austin and Saki should get married.

Then one day, a family friend asked Saki to sing at his wedding. She agreed to write a new song just for the occasion. She even wrote a piano part to go with the song, but that meant she needed someone to play the piano. This gave her dad an idea. He knew that Austin could play the piano. He decided he was going to get Austin to help Saki with her song. It took some work, but he managed to get Austin to agree to play at the wedding. Austin and Saki would have to practice together.

Practicing

Once they started practicing, Austin and Saki began to warm up to each other. They were in a pretty awkward position, being set up like that, so they tried to make the best of it by making conversation. Austin was shy and had a hard time with this.

After a while, their conversations began dominating their practice sessions. They would play for less than an hour and then sit and talk till midnight. Their conversations weren't always very deep, but at least they were getting more comfortable around each other. Mr and Mrs Bright sat back and watched as things were falling to place.

The Wedding

Pretty soon it was time for them to perform at the wedding. They had been looking forward to it for about a month, but now that it was here, they realized that they wouldn't have any reason to go on seeing each other anymore. They wouldn't have any reason to go on having six-hour conversations if there wasn't any reason to practice.

Saki's dad was so worried about it that he asked Austin to come back to their house after the wedding to talk about the situation. This made Austin nervous, but he managed to get through the performance alright. After the wedding they had a long conversation back at the Bright's house, and Austin and Saki officially began their courtship that night.

Courtship

The main rule for the courtship was that they couldn't go anywhere without a chaperone. The chaperone was almost always one of the younger Bright children. They were pretty disinterested, which is something to look for in a chaperone, but the requirement did pose logistical difficulties from time to time.

If having a chaperone made it harder to go places, it made it easier to just sit and talk. Their favorite place was the bench on the front porch at Saki's house. It was a very uncomfortable bench, but it was the easiest place they could go to get some privacy. Sometimes they would set up lawn chairs instead. They did go to the beach twice, once with each family, and they made pizza together several times. When they could, they went interesting places like the flea market, and Cameron Village, and a used book store in Chapel Hill.

The Proposal

Saki's parents had made it clear that they didn't want a drawn-out courtship. They didn't want to rush anything, but they didn't want it to go on any longer than it needed to either. Austin had practically made up his mind while they were practicing, but marriage isn't something to take lightly. After nearly two months of courting, he was quite confident about his decision.

Having dutifully acquired a lovely engagement ring, as well as the blessing of both families, Austin set out for the Bright's house on a Tuesday evening after work. It was his custom to have dinner at the Bright's on Tuesdays. After dinner, he and Saki went and sat on the front porch.

Austin hadn't realized how difficult it would be to bring up the topic that was on his mind. As they talked, they migrated from the front porch first to standing on the lawn, and then to sitting in lawn chairs facing away from the house. Finally, Austin managed to ask Saki to marry him.

She said yes.