We adore a love story just as much as anyone. That can’t be too much of a surprise. Take a flip through these pages and you’ll see—organza, sparkle, happily ever after. L-O-V-E. But we’ve never heard a tale as good as this. Why’s that, you wonder? Because this once-upon-a-time started right here, in our very office. And guess what?
We were none the wiser. “We just decided we weren’t going to say a word,” says Becky Phillips, a former marketing coordinator for Delaware Today. “We were a pretty close staff, and we hung out together. We just didn’t want to say anything and have it be … weird.”
When Becky left Delaware Today to take a position with NKS Distributors, she and now-husband Jarred let the cat out of the bag at her going-away happy hour. “Some people had an idea we were dating, others were blown away,” says Becky with a laugh.
But let’s backtrack to 2008, when this story almost never started.
“He was just the new guy, the intern,” Becky says.
“Becky and I first met when she snooped into a conference room at Delaware Today just to see who the new guy was,” remembers Jarred. “I had no idea who she was but thought she was beautiful and took a mental note.”
Beautiful she is. Honey hair, warm eyes, megawatt smile, cheekbones to die for. It’d be enough to make any guy sweat.
Literally.
“I was so intimated by how beautiful she was that I would always sweat whenever she came into my cubicle,” Jarred says.
Visibly sweat?
“Oh, yeah,” says Becky. “I would ask him, ‘Are you OK? Is it hot in here?’ And he would just kind of say, ‘Oh, no, I’m all right.’”
The two fell into an easy collegiality. But then tragedy struck. Becky’s father passed away. She took a leave from work to be with family.
“Jarred sent flowers to my house,” Becky says. “I was so touched. I barely knew him. But I realized he was such a good, sweet guy. That was a turning point for me.”
A first date soon followed, at Union City Grille. The date was good, but Becky was anxious. She was not too far removed from heartbreak from a previous relationship, and she thought the single thing might be good for her for a while.
But then Jarred went away on a trip to the Caribbean with friends, and she missed him. “Here he is, in St. Thomas, but he’s taking the time to message me, even the littlest thing, just to say hi,” Becky says. “Then things got serious.”
The ring, from Orly Diamonds, burned a hole in Jarred’s pocket for six months. He was waiting for the perfect time. A trip to Montreal to visit Becky’s grandparents in 2012 didn’t get any better.
“Proposing in Montreal was perfect because I wanted her family up there to be involved,” says Jarred. “Unfortunately I realized halfway there that I’d left my shoes at home so I proposed in a pair Air Max 90s. I’m still embarrassed about that.”
After lunch in Old Montreal, the pair walked along the gorgeous Saint-Lauren. “And he just found this woman to take a picture of us,” Becky says. “So we have the whole thing on film. I’m so glad that’s what he chose, because getting engaged there was extra special.”
While Becky was over the moon to become Jarred’s wife, the whole wedding planning thing wasn’t something she got too worked up over. “I think I applied the same approach to almost every decision,” Becky says. “Pick something and be done with it. We were more focused on thinking about our family and friends, wanting them to have a good time, than, say, picking a videographer.”
The most important thing to the Phillips was not losing themselves. “We didn’t want it to be over the top. You can get so caught up in Pinterest and looking at everyone else’s ideas that you forget yourself,” Becky says.
Jarred applauds his wife’s cool-as-a-cucumber approach. “She was that calm. She just knew how to handle the rough situations and who to call before they happened,” he says. “It really helped my fantasy football team. I know she could have done it all herself. I was a lesser member of the board. My vote weighed slightly less than the other members. At one point I bought some battery powered lights on eBay and I had some crazy idea and it was shot down in a single dinner, thank God.”
The venue was a no-brainer. The vows were exchanged at Christ Church Christiana, where her parents were married. The reception was at the Greenville Country Club. “We fell in love with it,” Becky says. She sings the praises of Linda Gaynor, the on-site coordinator there. “She was amazing. She did so much for us.”
Her theme was simple, neutral, comfortable, low-key. So was her attitude toward her wedding day look. “I didn’t even want a wedding dress,” she says. “I was so over dress shopping. Over it!” Her mother wanted her to try on one last dress at Frank Bernard, a Mori Lee. “It was lace. It was strapless. Both things that I didn’t want. I was putting up such a fuss about it.” But then she put it on.
“It was kind of perfect,” she admits, sheepishly. She wanted to put a slight spin on it, so she had a seamstress whip up some sleeves. “They were gorgeous, eyelet lace, they went down the back.”
Her bridesmaids were darling in coral J.Crew off-the-rack dresses. The guys were natty in navy, also taking J.Crew for a spin. Some of the bride’s favorite little things from the big day were Jarred’s watch, which was her father’s; the groomsmen’s hip La Matera belts, made locally by Brook and Alex Stroud; and her bouquet charm, from Etsy, which featured a photograph of her father.
Her favorite moments aren’t so easy to pick. There was the charming photo session on the gold vintage couch, laid out in the resplendent Greenville sunshine. There was the cake-cutting, “our first thing we did together as a couple. I loved it,” she says. But there was nothing like a visit from her and Jarred’s chocolate lab, Pelle, who dressed the part in a bow-tie.
“We were very lucky to have this sort of idyllic day in Greenville in August on what should be a sweltering Saturday,” says Jarred. “It was all so unbelievably perfect that picking a single moment is tough. I’d say the moment Becky and I finally got to see each other before the wedding. I know some people think that pre-wedding shoot goes against tradition, but for me it made the day all the more special.”
And then, of course, there was dancing. The girls kicked off their heels in favor of classic Old Navy flip-flops and cut a rug. For the first dance, the couple swayed to Band of Horse’s “No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I do.”
After a lazy, sun-soaked honeymoon in California, where they rented a romantic tree house in the middle of a canyon in Big Sur, the couple is back in their cozy Trolley Square home and looking toward the future. “We want to travel, spend time with family, focus on us.” Next on the agenda: turning 30, together. “When I spaz, he’s there. We really appreciate each other for different things.”
For Jarred, Becky’s humor is one of the many things he loves about her. “I sometimes wonder if people know how funny she is. She’s hilarious,” he says. “I am so lucky to come home to her.”
He thinks about what his favorite part of the wedding was, and lights upon the closing line of one of his best men’s (he had two: brother Gabe and friend Pat) speeches.
“The best part may have been lost in the applause. But Pat’s final line is something that will stay with us forever:
‘May all of their yesterdays be an inspiration to us all, and may they light us fools the way to health and happiness.’”