Our story

After we sent our wedding invitations to friends and family, we received a few responses such as “who is PAUL?!” and “Paul, whaaaaa? Do you have this story written up in a Substack or something, so we can catch up?”

We got together quickly last year. Over the Christmas 2024 holidays, we were meeting each other’s closest friends and family for the first time, telling them we’re getting married, and also answering questions about how we met. We promised friends to tell them the story before the wedding, so here it is.

We met at the Cameron House on Wednesday, January 17, 2024. Paul’s band, Heavy on the Willie, had a weekly residency there, playing 6-8pm.

Julia:

The context of how I came to be at the Cameron House is important. In summer 2022, having lived in many different places since finishing high school in Toronto, I decided that I was missing a sense of home and wanted to commit to one place to build a home/life there. I chose Toronto. However, because many of my closest friends lived in the places I lived previously (BC, mostly), I was afraid Toronto would feel lonely. To avoid this, I decided I would find/create a place for myself somewhere in Toronto where, any night of the week, if I wanted to be with people, I could go there and find friends or make new friends. I decided that place would be the Cameron House. I had worked for a music festival in northern BC and had musician friends in Toronto, had spent some time at the Cameron House over the years, and felt connected to the music and people there.

Paul:

Before I met Julia, I had a long history with the Cameron House going back more that twenty years. I played in both the front and back rooms with two of my own bands and with many other bands. I released two CDs there (in 2003 and 2015), and I met many friends there over the years. With my current band, Heavy on the Willie, I had frequent weekly residencies in the front room for several years until the start of the pandemic. In January 2024, we were finally back with a Wednesday residency in the 6-8pm time slot.

Julia:

I often dropped by the Cameron House on my way home from work for a beer and a chat and that is how I found myself there on Wednesday, January 17, 2024. I knew my friend Matt would be bartending, as he did every Monday and Wednesday, so I walked in and sat at the bar. (Matt’s band, Doghouse Orchestra, plays at the Cameron House every Sunday, 10pm until late.)

That evening, though, I was in a grey mood. Matt poured me a beer and I turned toward the band, spinning around in my thoughts. Around the band’s third song, however, the band brought me back into the room. On the fourth song, I found myself in the song. I made a connection between the thoughts spinning around in my head and the song’s main character. The song made me feel seen and heard. I felt like Paul had hugged me from the stage. I decided I would ask him later if it was recorded somewhere.

Paul:

That Wednesday, my friends, Erin and Jeff, were in the audience and, whenever they came out, I would invite Erin up to sing a song with me. The song that I invited Erin up to sing was the song that had made Julia feel seen and heard. (If Erin wasn’t there that day, it’s quite likely that the band and I wouldn’t have played it.)

At the break between our two sets, I sat at a table catching up with Erin and Jeff when Julia came over to talk to me. Nichol Robertson, who was playing guitar that night with Heavy on the Willie, and knew Julia, said by way of introduction, “this is the man you want to talk to.” I was impressed and gratified that Julia was so taken by my song. She later bought the album the song was on, and asked me for the words and chords for it. I was happy to send them to her.

Julia came back to see Heavy on the Willie on all of the remaining Wednesdays in January. I played that song for her each time, feeling like it had a renewed significance. I was happy to see her. However, I was in a relationship at that time.

Julia:

The second time I saw Paul, I loitered around near the bar, trying to look casual, while the band packed up their gear. The opportunity to chat presented itself and we discussed the tree planting friends we found we had in common. We decided we’d get tea sometime, to talk about our experiences of tree planting in northern Canada, which had been a very formative experience for both of us, and which felt very far away now, in Toronto.

In late January, I told a friend I had a crush on someone and put on Paul’s album. The friend recognized Paul’s name on it. She had done some guitar lessons with him many years earlier, and had known him from a Bloor West cafe that had been a community hub back then. I liked her stories about Paul, and said I was thinking I might ask him out.

Paul:

Meeting Julia made an impact on me. I noticed that she made me feel seen and appreciated in a way that had been missing. I thought about her a lot. After I played my last January residency show at the Cameron House, Julia held the door open for me as I was carrying my guitar and amp out. I offered her a drive home, and she declined, saying she had her bike. We said goodbye and see you around, and that was that for now.

Julia:

In February, I invited Paul to see a band in the backroom of the Cameron House. He declined, saying he didn’t know if he was reading my invitation correctly but it was important for him to tell me that he was in a relationship.

Paul’s clear, direct, and honest response, though momentarily disappointing (note: Paul initially read this as “monumentally”), made me feel pretty great. I was proud of asking someone out and impressed by his forthright, clear response, which made me feel like I was on the right track, like he was exactly the kind of person I should be asking out. I responded that, of course, I understood, and I’d still be up for getting tea sometime to talk about tree planting. We agreed we’d do that sometime.

Over the next few months, we saw each other half a dozen times, at shows. I had no thoughts of dating Paul. That door in my head closed as soon as he said he was in a relationship. But I liked seeing his band.

Paul:

Meanwhile, since meeting Julia on January 17, 2024, I was wrestling with my feelings. I was happy to see her each time I played with Heavy on the Willie. I would always play that song for her that she so connected with the first time we met. I was trying to understand what Julia meant to me and what my feelings for her meant about the state of my relationship. I went on many walks with my close friends over the next few months, sharing my thoughts about it with them, and asking them for their thoughts.

Julia:

I had no idea about any of this. Not until many months later. I just though Paul was an interesting person in an interesting band.

In April 2024, my friends, Erik and Max, and I went to see Heavy on the Willie at the Gerrard Art Space, in Toronto’s east end.

That show was spectacular. Pin-drop quiet in the room. Electric atmosphere. Paul commanding the room’s energy. Erik, Max, and I got outside after the show and agreed that we were not going to forget that anytime soon.

Paul:

My close friend, Dave Clark (now bandleader at our wedding), was playing on the drums that night in Heavy on the Willie. I had been confiding to him about my feelings for Julia for a while by then. Dave remarked to me at the end of the night how Julia had biked all the way out east to see my band. I noticed that too, of course, and that was meaningful to me. I longed to see more of her. I found myself posting things on Instagram and hoping she would notice and like them.

Julia:

Again, I had no idea about any of this. I liked Paul and his band but I did not think about dating him because he had already said “no” in February about going to see a show together.

A month or so later, I caught a few songs at the end of Paul’s set at the Tranzac and we agreed to get tea the following week. We met at Bampot in mid-May and talked about tree planting and other things.

Paul:

I was a little nervous with anticipation before meeting Julia at Bampot. For one thing, I was in a relationship and I assured myself that I was on my way to meet my new friend and we were going to talk about music and tree planting, and so on. But on the way there, I was scrambling to find some breath mints. Our tea date was really pleasant and I wasn’t nervous anymore once we got talking. I biked home afterwards thinking about how much I like talking with Julia and how I want to get to know her better.

Sometime later, in July 2024, I played two shows at the Cameron House.

Julia came out to the July 15 show. After the show, we sat outside on the Cameron House patio, in the warm glow of fading mid-summer sunlight, talking over beers.

Julia:

Two of Paul’s bandmates made eyes at Paul about the two of us drinking beers together. I pretended not to notice.

Paul:

What Julia was also pretending not to notice was that I was quite attracted to her and I was pretending that it wasn’t completely obvious.

A couple of weeks later, near the end of July, I had finally realized that I had to face the music and end my relationship, and I decided to do that before I saw Julia again. Two days later, I met Julia back at the Cameron House patio and told her that I was ending my relationship. It was clear to me that Julia was the person I wanted to see more, and I could no longer justify seeing Julia as a friend while I was in a relationship.

Julia:

I was startled when Paul said he had something important to tell me. What he said surprised me, but it also made sense. I understood that it had something to do with me. I didn’t want to talk about it too much though because he just ended a relationship and was still in the process, so I thanked him for telling him and we moved on to other things, finished our beers, and went home.

Later that week, I was on the phone with my oldest friend, Jacqueline (who lives in BC), and told her that something unusual had happened recently. I told her what Paul had said on the Cameron House patio. Then I told her that the next thing I was about to say was going to sound crazy. However, we’d known each other since we were 11 so she would know that I had never said these words before. “I think I’ve met my partner.”

Paul:

At the beginning of August, at the Cameron House, I told Julia that I had finally ended my relationship. She said, “let’s talk about this when we’re not partying.” We went on our first date on Friday, August 9, 2024, to play songs for each other in Trinity Bellwoods Park. On our second date, we went to watch the Perseid meteor shower from the Ontario Place waterfront. On our third date, Julia invited me out to a storytelling event and then we biked back to her apartment to drink wine and listen to music.

Julia:

Toward the end of the night, when we were listening to music and sharing songs, Paul pulled me up to dance. After he went home, he texted, “let’s keep dancing together. I love every minute of it.”

On our fourth date, which lasted 30 hours and included my besties, Josh, Tereza, and Jacqueline, who were all visiting from BC, we saw Mike T. Kerr play three different times (as Tereza later pointed out, when she was reviewing her trip to Toronto: “It was great! We saw Mike T. Kerr play three times in 24 hours!”), twice at the Cameron and once at Grossman’s, and Jacqueline took the first photos of us:

After our fifth date, we both came down with covid (mild cases). The silver lining was that we could quarantine together and decided to go camping in Awenda Provincial Park. By the time we were testing negative and coming back to Toronto, we were in love.

We decided to get married in mid-October 2024. We were at Brockton Village Bakery on Dundas West when we decided.

Julia:

I asked Paul to make me a ring out of a twist tie.