We're getting married!

Luke and Emily met on a cold, February evening in the lobby of Stageworks Northwest at the theater's 2017 auditions for Philip Barry's "The Philadelphia Story." Well, perhaps "met" is too strong of a word. In reality, Luke showed up late to auditions and was only vaguely aware of Emily's presence as a new face in the theater, while Emily was, apparently, blushing beet red and far too intimidated to talk to Luke; the only thought in her head being "Oh no, he's cute." After being respectively cast as the whip-smart photographer Liz Imbree and the slightly cynical reporter Mike Connor, Emily made a conscious effort to befriend Luke for the good of the show, and with absolutely no ulterior motives. Throwing a wrench into her plan however was the fact that she didn't actually know Luke's name, referring to him simply as "Mike," after his character, for the first month of rehearsals. Only after Luke was forced to cut his impressively long hair for the show did she work up the courage to ask what his name was. Somehow, Luke found Emily's awkward attempts at making friends endearing, which mostly involved her texting him various Shakespeare memes, and the two struck up a friendship that lasted far beyond Philly. Luke and Emily endured many ups and downs together over their years of friendship, including job loss, hospitalization, and going back to college. But through it all, the two of them continued to grow closer and closer together, until one day, dating started sounding like a good idea to both of them.

Luke's proposal did not go as planned. Emily was in another show at Stageworks Northwest, Leslie Slape's "Zorro's Grape Adventure," and Luke had originally planned to go to the Friday night performance, take Emily out to dinner at her favorite local restaurant, and then afterwards ask her to marry him (insert romantic swooning here). Unfortunately, a few hours before she was set to start getting ready for the show, Emily received the news that someone in the cast had tested positive for covid, and the entire weekend's shows would have to be canceled. Upon alerting Luke to the unfortunate situation, the first thought to cross his mind was "Well, I guess we're winging it!" Luke took Emily for a walk down at Willow Grove, a beautiful local park by the bank of the Columbia River. Emily, for her part, had her suspicions, having told her mom while waiting for Luke to pick her up that if Luke had trimmed his beard, she was pretty sure she was getting proposed to. Lo and behold, Luke had indeed trimmed his beard. After getting back to his car after their walk, and with Emily now second-guessing her suspicions, Luke stealthily pulled out a very large ring box which he'd had absolutely no way of hiding on his person. Emily was so excited and so enthralled with how utterly beautiful the ring was, that she completely forgot to say "yes" to Luke's question of "Will you marry me?" and the poor man actually had to remind her, leading to a great deal of laughter, a smidge of embarrassment, and maybe some happy tears.