Hitched

Tacee Chalfa's made her living buying and selling secondhand goods, but this head honcho of très trendy vintage clothiers Red Light Clothing District never imagined she'd find love amid midcentury modern dining-room tables and hand-me-down T-shirts.

And the 30-year-old tastemaker extraordinaire never thought "the one" would be a log-cabin-building, antique-furniture-collecting mountain man.

"I've always dated rock-star boys," Tacee says of her often ill-fated romantic history.

Tacee spent much of last fall in postseason spring-cleaning mode, and was busy unloading a storage unit's worth of swag to various consignment shops around town. One of the sites was Crackers, an unassuming vintage-furniture shop in the Clinton neighborhood. At first she hardly noticed Heath Webb, the outdoorsy-looking owner behind the counter.

"He always looked so shabby," says Tacee. To her, Heath was an enigma. At 6-foot-2 with a physical fitness reaped from a year spent restoring Yellowstone cabins, Heath, 29, looked like a man more comfortable climbing Mount Hood than spending long hours rummaging through estate sales alongside Antiques Roadshow groupies.

During one of Tacee's visits, Heath mentioned a '75 Rolling Stones concert T-shirt in his own collection. Tacee--always on the lookout for new finds--began to inquire after it on a daily basis. As Tacee continued to pop into the store, Heath started thinking she might be looking for more than just rock memorabilia and table lamps.

Eventually, Tacee scored the shirt for 25 bucks (a bargain, she says, it's now the prize of her collection, which is impressive--see "Tee for Tunes," WW, July 17, 2002) and, later, a date to Cuban restaurant Pambiche. Though the date was made under the guise of Halloween party planning, no definite plans for the trick-or-treat festivities were made that night, but Tacee did lay a few ground rules.

Throughout the near-perfect evening, Heath continuously referred to his female friends as "girlfriends"; the references peeved Tacee, and she offered some dating advice to the seemingly clueless Heath. "I said to him, 'That's a bad move. Here's a tip: Drop the girlfriend lingo.'"

The tip worked. By the time the Halloween parties came around, Heath called Tacee not only his honest-to-goodness girlfriend, but his roommate. Both dismiss the swiftness of their live-in lover setup, saying they'd spent enough time in love's trenches to know when it was right.

By the new year, the couple's fast-forward romance reached lightning speeds. After realizing her frequent trips to the buffet table were most likely the cause of something other than just hunger, Tacee bought a pregnancy test. Already mom to Palace, her 5-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Tacee'd had that funny feeling before. Turns out her instincts hit the spot: The couple was expecting.

Wedding talk ensued. Tacee (who secured her wedding dress at age 12) and Heath dreamed of decadent nuptials. In April, however, the couple's plans changed when a routine doctor's visit indicated trouble with the pregnancy, then in its second trimester.

Tacee's blood tests posited abnormal results and warranted a prenatal amniocentesis test to determine genetic defects. The outcome established that the baby would be born with Down syndrome. The couple was steadfast in their desire to give their child the best life possible. Throughout these tumultuous times, Tacee says, Heath's attitude has remained positive. "He's been so amazing," she says. "The only time he's cried through this whole thing was when the doctor said we're having a boy. He wanted one so bad, and he was so excited."

The couple's weathered more storms before their one-year mark than most couples do in 20 years. They married this year on Mother's Day in a small ceremony, and are still planning the big wedding for next Father's Day weekend, to be held at the 1870s-era log cabin where Tacee was born and raised on rural Decatur Island in Puget Sound.

WWeek 2015