Hitched

In cooking school, chef wannabes learn the ins and outs of food preparation, the importance of timing and the need for patience. It took a year for Sarah Small and Michael Gary to learn the ways of the kitchen while attending Western Culinary Institute, but there was no slow roasting going on when it came time for them to get romantic.

The couple met in June of '98, halfway through their yearlong intensive training. Michael, then 21, asked Sarah, 18, if she'd like to go for a date. She said yes.

Things went well--really well.

The two didn't spend the night together that night, but Michael slept over at Sarah's the next one. And the night after that. And so on.

"We didn't waste any time," Sarah says. Michael kept a toothbrush and a few changes of clothes at Sarah's studio apartment near the Rose Garden. After a few months, they decided to make a move into a bigger place, and the two say they were together every single day for the next year.

Even though the couple was quick to shack up, it was five years before their wedding date. The delay wasn't for lack of trying.

They started shopping for engagement rings after six months together. Once they found one, Michael slipped it on Sarah's finger. A church was booked, a dress bought, and the couple hoped to wed by their one-year anniversary. "We wanted a big wedding," Michael says.

But somewhere in those first hurried months, reality began to set in. Both graduated from the Culinary Institute and, like many amorous recent grads, lacked the funds necessary to pull together the ceremony. Both were working a slew of odd jobs that included restaurants and even a stint at U.S. Bank. Though both worked hard, they didn't have a lot of capital to fund a wedding. "We like to shop," says Michael. "We're not real big savers."

In the meantime, the couple indulged in passions--and spending habits--outside the kitchen. Both are captivated by an art perhaps more tactile (and expensive) than cooking: tattooing their bodies. Sarah has logged 60 hours under the needle, and her back now features an image of a Japanese geisha surrounded by a lush and colorful landscape. Michael's back is only partly finished, and features a large Chinese dragon and a poem in Chinese calligraphy. Trips to the tattoo parlor came in waves, Michael says. Instead of Christmas and birthday gifts, they'd often give each other money for more tattoo work.

The couple's wedding plans re-emerged this year after an insurance settlement from an August car accident that produced back injuries and a lump sum to help finance a wedding.

With the money in the bank, the couple could proceed with marriage plans but faced a new obstacle. Sarah, now a sous chef on the Queen of the West sternwheeler, spends a month on the Columbia River before a two-week hiatus. That left Michael, who was veering away from restaurant work to focus his time on a career in photography, to make the wedding arrangements by himself, save for final-approval calls to Sarah on board the vessel.

The couple coordinated a modest, weekday wedding on Monday, June 16--almost five years to the date after they first met--on one of Sarah's breaks from the steamboat. Inside the tiny Oaks Pioneer Church in Sellwood, the couple were married in front of nearly 50 guests, while Michael's stepfather organized the reception setup at a nearby Sellwood Park.

It was, perhaps, a more humble celebration than they'd first imagined five years ago. They're planning an eventual blowout honeymoon to Thailand--but first they've just got to save some money.

WWeek 2015