How it all began…
“I did a liiiiittle bit of cyber stalking.”
— Erik
“Erik was there wearing the ‘red flannel’… I was a sucker for a red flannel.”
— Deb
Erik’s side of the story:
An old band mate of mine, Jose, asked me to film a short promo video for him and had asked Deb to be the on-camera host. I had never met Deb so when we had a group call the night before the shoot to go over some details I was immediately intrigued by Deb, even over the phone. After the call ended, I admit that I did a liiiiittle bit of cyber stalking on Facebook. You know, to see who I would be working with the next day. Strictly in a professional manner! So during my professional research I saw that I was going to be incredibly lucky to be working with an absolute smoke show of a woman the next morning so I promptly went to bed so the morning would come more quickly.
The next morning in the parking lot at the Venice Pier, I was getting equipment together at my car when I glanced up and saw a pretty girl riding a bicycle in my direction and I realized it was her! The girl I had been cyber stalking… I mean researching on Facebook! I say “her” because for the life of me I couldn’t remember what her name was! She was riding past and then actually away from me when I finally remembered and shouted out “Hey Deb!” Deb was a bit startled and surprised that some random dude was yelling her name but she bravely circled back and I was able to explain myself that I was the video guy shooting for our friend Jose.
Throughout the shoot I had to keep telling myself “be cool man, play it cool” “you’re a professional, do your job” because I kept getting distracted by how beautiful Deb was and I mean come on, her accent! How can you not! Side note: I’m sure she finds my smooth midwest accent to be just as attractive.
As the shoot was wrapping up I definitely wanted to see Deb again, luckily a band I was playing in at the time had a gig the next night so I invited Deb to come to the show. I knew that she didn’t stand a chance of not falling in love with me after she witnessed my bass skills playing with “Matt Black and the Space Babies” . Deb came to the gig and here we are today.
Guess I was right.
Deb’s side of the story:
My friend Jose asked me to help him create a kickstarter video, all we needed now was the camera guy. Jose said he knew someone from his old band who could do the job!
The three of us spoke on the phone and afterwards I did stalk Erik online a little bit too, I thought he looked kind of preppy from the one Facebook photo I saw, which wasn’t really my type, but part of me had a weird feeling we were going to like each other.
We agreed to meet on Venice beach for the shoot so I rode my bike down in the morning, Jose was late but Erik was there putting a SURFBOARD on his car and wearing the “red flannel”… I was a sucker for a red flannel. He was not at all the guy I had imagined. He was cute, and I knew I was in trouble. He was.. exactly my type. I asked him where he got his coffee from and I went to the store to grab one. In line I was thinking, “you can’t like this guy, be a professional” and then all of a sudden he popped up right next to me saying “hey!” with his big smile and infectious energy, and I almost jumped out of my skin, as if he had just caught me red handed in my thoughts.
We did the shoot, I had to keep trying to focus, but we got it done, said our goodbyes and Erik invited me to come and watch his band play the next night. I’m thinking, he’s cute, nice, a film guy, he SURFS and he’s in a BAND!? If I could have time traveled back to my 15 year old self I would tell her she is one powerful sorcerer coming up with this wish list, it would just take us a good 15-ish more years to manifest him.
I did go and see his band play the next night. Well played sir, inviting me to swoon over your smooth bass skills and vocals… He asked me to dance after they finished playing and of course I said yes. A week or so after that night he took me on our first date where he surprised me with his unique idea of “skateboarding the Santa Monica parking lot.” I was TERRIFIED. (He may have been mislead from a certain instagram post of mine with me on a skateboard). But it ended up in our favor, tandem skateboarding while he held on to me. After the skate, he busted out two beers from the trunk (or the boot as we say in NZ), put on some music from his phone, and we danced on the parking lot roof! The pier and the ferris wheel were in the distance as our view. We shared our first kiss up there. And that was it. I was all in.
The rest is history.
The Proposal
While on a road trip in New Zealand, in March of 2019, Erik & Deb stopped in Raglan, (famous for its amazing surf). Sadly, there were no waves. But little did Deb know, Erik had something else in mind for their time in Raglan. Erik had been scoping the perfect spot all day for the proposal. When sunset arrived, Erik asked Deb if she wanted to go and shoot some drone footage in the nice sunlight. Deb said “nah, it’s ok, I’m going to stay at the Airbnb” (she had an audition script she was working on.) Erik, a little concerned, insisted that Deb come with him, so she brought her script and sat on a bench learning her lines as Erik set up the cameras for what she thought, was some extra travel footage of their trip.
Check out the video below for what happened next…
