Wedding Date on Nov 4, 2018

Bride’s full name, age and occupation: Nubia Murray, 34, Global Marketing Manager Groom’s full name, age and occupation: Brian Davis, 34, Research and Development Chef Place of residence: Chicago, IL Wedding date: November 4th, 2018 Wedding Location: Malibu Rocky Oaks Vineyard - Malibu, CA True childhood sweethearts, we met each other popping (milk) bottles (quite literally!) at Mrs. Hunter's daycare on the Southside of Chicago, as 3 month-old babies in 1984. We often glamorize our meeting by saying ‘our mothers touched bellies and our fate was sealed!.’ When actually, our older brothers, who are both four years our senior, attended the same elementary school and it was logistically easier for both sets of parents to put us in daycare nearby. After Brian's family moved out of the neighborhood in 1992, we reunited as middle school frenemies in the Whitney Young High School Academic Center. Our distaste for one another was actually neither of our doing. Brian’s childhood best-friend made a hurtful joke about me, claiming that I looked like a ‘Nubian Goat’. While I applaud said friend for keen historical research about Eastern Africa, especially as a 7th grader, it was a cruel statement. And thus, I disliked Brian by association. The angst didn’t last long as Brian and I dated in 8th grade and a bit during the summer between Junior High and High School. Our Junior High School courtship was short-lived as we reverted back to frenemies throughout High School until the fall of Senior Year, when Nubia caught my eye again during her dance performance in the Senior Talent Show. I called Nubia after the show to congratulate her and we met up for a group date at a local sandwich shop. After that night, we began officially dating and even attended Winter Formal and Senior Prom together, and were basically inseparable during the summer leading up to college. Despite Brian going to college in Tallahassee, FL, and Nubia to college in Washington DC, we vowed to stay together. And while we had the best of intentions, the distance between us and teenage immaturity led us to break it off during sophomore year in college. As Nubia tells it, she was in a committed relationship with ME but I wasn’t in a committed relationship to HER! A congratulatory 'check-in' call from Nubia to me in May of 2006 (she really wanted to see if I'd managed to graduate in four years!) rekindled our permanent flame. Nubia went on a short girls’ trip to Miami right after walking across the graduation stage and I picked her up from the airport in Chicago when she landed. We again were inseparable the summer after graduating from college, until Nubia left for her full-time job in New York and I stayed in Chicago. We suffered through the distance for a year before I took the leap and moved to New York to be with Nubia, moving to Harlem together in 2007. Throughout our time living together, we often joked that if we received a dollar for every ‘when are you two getting married?’ conversation, the wedding would be paid for 3-times over. And although we were fairly comfortable with the structure of our relationship, I knew that if I didn’t take the next step, I may have lost Nubia. Although she enjoyed filling her time with her career, volunteer activities, and endurance events, she wanted the assurance to add me to the top of her priority list and didn't feel 100% comfortable doing so until I set things in stone. And together, we also knew how important our union was to our parents, especially as they respectively approach the sunset of their lives. On November 4, 2016, I asked Nubia for her hand in marriage (shockingly, she says!) and on November 4, 2018, we wed. We are truly grateful that there isn’t a point in our lives where we haven’t been connected – in space, time, or spirit. And we made November 4th the most beautiful and sentimental celebration to honor our lifetime of love…34 years in the making. Our relationship timeline: Fall 1984: Popped our first ‘bottles’ together at Ms. Hunter’s daycare. Fall 1992: Brian’s family moved out of the neighborhood :( Fall 1996: We reunited in Jr. High, first as frenemies, and finally as BF/GF in 8th grade. Summer 1998: Out of sight, out of mind! Back to frenemies. Fall 2001: Brian called Nubia ‘out of the blue’ after her performance in the Senior Talent Show. Spring 2004: Lasting through the end of HS and a bit in college, we fizzled once again. Spring 2006: A congratulatory ’check in’ call from Nubia before graduation reignited our permanent flame. November 4, 2016: Brian asks for Nubia’s hand in marriage, forever ever. November 4, 2018: Exactly two years after our engagement, we wed!