The Homecoming
Zachary Schiller, a 30-year-old banker Audrey Gottlieb, a 27-year-old educator Where: Cabbagetown Wedding date: August 4, 2019 Photography: Jessilynn Wong Audrey met Zachary in the fall of 2015. They’d been casually talking for a few weeks, and one night, when her date cancelled at the last minute, she called Zachary and asked him out for a drink at Drake One Fifty. They clicked and made dinner plans for a few days later.
After two years of dating, they purchased their dream home together, a charming Victorian semi in Cabbagetown. Zachary co-ordinated his proposal with the day they got possession of the house. It was a frantic morning: he scrambled across the city to pick up the keys, the ring and a bottle of Fat Banker Chardonnay, the same wine Audrey ordered on their first date.
When Audrey arrived at the house that night, she opened the door to find Zachary waiting in the living room next to a bunch of rose-coloured metallic balloons that spelled out “MARRY ME.” He recited the line he’d spent days rehearsing: “Our house locked you in for the next 30 years. I want to lock you in for life.”
He now jokes that asking her to marry him was more of a statement, since the company didn’t make balloon question marks in that colour. “I was pretty confident she’d say yes.”