Our Engagement Story

How we got engaged:To read the full story, click hereWe are currently sharing a car as his blew up prior to a camping trip. He needed it yesterday for work so he dropped me off at my job in the morning. He came to pick me up after work. We had talked about maybe working out that afternoon but first we HAD to stop by the garden. It had been a rainy and cool few days and with Yom Kippur, we hadn’t been to the garden in a couple of days. He lured me there with the notion that our watermelon… yes we grew a watermelon!!! might be ready.That day I had forwarded him an email from the minyan (a lay led synagogue) that we had been attending, suggesting that we should join and do a couples membership. He told me “Whoa, lo0k you have to give me a night to think about this. Joining a synagogue as a couple is a big step. I mean, it says something, especially if we aren’t even engaged!”I could kick myself! How could I do that?! Scaring off the Sweet Boyfriend is NOT a good idea!So we proceeded to the garden. I flitted around… picking zucchinis and patty-pans while Sweet Boyfriend is off in a corner. La la la… no worries in the world.Sweet Boyfriend says: “Babe! Come here! You have to see this!”I come running. Is it a awesome squash? A yellow patty-pan? I come running. Just as I get to him, he turns around, looks me in the eyes and says: “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.I froze. Holy crap. That isn’t a squash. That is a ring. A beautiful ring.“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” I said.“Can I put this thing on your finger before I drop it in the dirt?” Sweet Boyfriend said.Of course. And though, after a touch of canoodling in the garden, I was ready to get back to picking… he informed me that it was all just a ruse to get me there. And there is champagne on ice at home. And we are going out to dinner.Whoa, can this man plan!When it was all said and done, he has been planning this for a while. He spoke to my father at break the fast after Yom Kippur, the day before, to get permission. His folks have seen and approved of the ring (and me).He became a diamond expert and purchased me a stone cut in a vintage style… to match my vintage style… and he proposed to me in the garden we grew together.

And we are back!

Hello! I would say sorry for the hiatus but I'm not. We are back from our amazing honeymoon and getting back into the swing of things. I can't believe it all happened, that we pulled it all off, but man... it feels great to be married!In case you missed it, here is the New York Times article on our engagement. It came out the day we were married... more to come! 

Talia Davis, Daniel Haykin

Dox Photo
By ROSALIE R. RADOMSKY
Published: March 10, 2013

Small Garden, Big Yield: A Marriage

Talia Hava Davis, the daughter of Iana Kade Davis and Rabbi Bahir Davis, both of Lafayette, Colo., is to be married Sunday to Daniel Solomon Haykin, the son of Elena Haykin and Michael Haykin of Centennial, Colo. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is to lead the ceremony, with the bride’s father participating, at the McNichols Building, an event space in Denver.

The bride, 31, will take her husband’s name. She is the senior manager for marketing of the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, a nonprofit fund-raising group for Jewish organizations, in Denver. She graduated magna cum laude from Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Fla., and received a master’s in public relations and marketing from the University of Denver.

The bride’s father is a rabbi in Lafayette, where he also runs Rocky Mountain Hai, a spiritual group, of which her mother is the administrator. Her mother also works in Lafayette as an executive assistant to the chief executive officer at Ilantus Technologies, a security technology firm based in Bangalore, India. The bride is the stepdaughter of Danielle Davis.

The groom, also 31, works in Denver as an investment adviser with his father, who runs a private financial investment firm in Centennial. The groom graduated from the University of Rochester. His mother retired as an electrical engineer in Longmont, Colo., at Seagate Technology, the hard-drive maker.

The couple were introduced by a mutual friend in early April 2012. Halfway through their first date at a Denver wine bar, Ms. Davis texted her roommate. “This is the man I’m going to marry,” she recalled texting.

A week earlier, Ms. Davis had acquired a small plot that needed tending at the community garden at Ekar Farm in Denver. By their third date she recruited Mr. Haykin, along with one of her friends, as gardeners.

Mr. Haykin showed up with garden tools. For several hours they worked.

Every Sunday they returned to the garden for “a big weeding date,” he said with a laugh. “We’d get dusty and dirty, and got blisters.”

They also stopped by during the week to water, and six weeks after the seeds were planted, they sprouted, along with their relationship.

“I was leaving for a trip,” the bride said, “and he took me to a cute bar and blurted out that he loved me. I started to tear up and said that ‘I love you, too.’ ”

In September, with the garden in full bloom, Mr. Haykin proposed with a ring hidden inside a gardening glove. “Babe, come here, you have to see this,” she recalled him saying from where he crouched behind a couple of plants.

“I came running, asking if it was a squash,” she said. He stood up with the open ring box. She froze.

After she said “yes” at least a half-dozen times, he quickly tended to matters at hand. “Can you put this thing on your finger before I drop it in the dirt?” he said. ROSALIE R. RADOMSKY

Even More Pictures!

We were fortunate enough to get to spend an afternoon with our wedding photographers. We are SO excited about them. They are a very nice young couple who shoot amazing pictures! They are totally in our style and totally in our budget. :) Check them out at DoxPhoto.comHere are a few pictures they shared with us... There are more here on their blog or click here for even more! :) 

Engagment Pictures

We finally got our act together! With all my work event craziness and Dan's general busy-ness... we hadn't had time to schedule our engagement pictures. It's been six weeks since we got engaged and since we are planning a March wedding... we need to get cracking on those Save-The-Dates!I was perusing Facebook the other day and noticed a friend of mine, Max Gerson, is shooting professional pictures on the side. And DAMN! He is good. :) I talked to Dan about maybe using Max for a photo shoot... He saw some of his pictures and agreed. So we planned for today, November 11... until Max told me that it was going to be snowy and gross. It was at that moment that I kinda freaked out. Dan's worried about people having time to make plans to get to the wedding (I agree) and we need to get the save-the-dates out.I have the designer in place, she is just waiting for the pics. So after going round and round with Max... me throwing out crazy ideas, he coming back with viable ones... we settled on some concepts. Dan wanted straight pics, Max and I were kind of excited about something a bit more dramatic. We looked at the weather and decided today, Sunday, would be the day. It was cold but beautiful.We started in Civic Center Park, near the wedding venue, and shot all around. Yes, there were homeless folk hanging out but nothing crazy happened... but we were COLD! From there, we moved on to The Cruise Room at The Oxford Hotel. AMAZING location. It opened the day after prohibition ended in 1933 and is downtown Denver's first bar. It was fashioned after one of the lounges on the Queen Mary. Original chrome and neon reflect onto the wall panels depicting light-hearted “toasts” from around the world. Utterly FUN to shoot pictures! The staff at McCormicks was amazing. They let us take pictures no problem and we came WAY before the bar was open. They have a free jukebox with songs from another era on actual 45s (records)... it kept us entertained and Max caught some great shots of us dancing. We also entertained the McCormicks patrons who watched us shoot through the glass doors. It's was Dan's first time taking pictures in public like that and he kept saying, "Babe! They are staring at us!" "We are keeping them quite entertained!"All in all, it was an awesome day and I think we got some beautiful pictures out of it. Max is quite talented, has great ideas but isn't too pushy. He let us take some of the shots we wanted too (even if they aren't as good)!So vendors to recommend - I loved shooting engagement pictures in downtown Denver. Don't be afraid to call your favorite bar or restaurant and ask if you can shoot before they open.Engagement pictures photographer - Max Gerson!!I'll be sure to post pictures when I get them! :)