It's nice to be the boss and have everyone looking out for your love life.
Employees at Canlis continually told third-generation owner Brian Canlis that he needed to find his soulmate, the love of his life, someone to help him pick out drapes, but soon. The employees felt Canlis was deserving of such happiness. These are employees so enfranchised with the success of the iconic eatery, that should a fragment of lint fall to the woody colored carpeting, it will be picked up immediately.
So they started looking out for Canlis' future wife, making guesses and bets at which table she would appear. One employee guessed the cache room, a bad bet since the cache room is a sort of bird's nest for four on the upper level. And yet, after 8:30 p.m., on this hot evening of July 11, 2006, as the main dining area filled up, a foursome showed up and amid the group was her.
Canlis was more or less humoring the staff, letting them have fun, but when he saw Rebecca Merriam for the first time, it was one of those moments from a good date movie.
"My jaw hit the ground," Canlis said from inside the cache room, reflecting on the moment. "She was beautiful so I started talking to her parents (the other members of the party along with Merriam's friend). It was fun to be instantly smitten with somebody."
Canlis usually orchestrates the symphony of food and drink and from behind the scenes but he made himself the sommelier for the group. The employee who had guessed Canlis would meet his future wife in the cache room was beaming when Canlis came back down for the wine. She knew a match was made.
A bold gesture, he left her his card and suggested they go out. She called the next day and the first date was set. After more than a year of courtship, the 29-year-old, Cornell grad and Airman decided to propose to the 24-year-old community affairs officer in Microsoft's philanthropic department.
In a green corduroy baseball cap he put several strips of paper on which he wrote different things they like to do. She picked a piece of paper, and they would go do whatever was written on it. After cleaning the kitchen and cooking for her, they snuck into a hotel somewhere in Seattle and went swimming in the pool.
Next on the list was some hot French fries at Zak's in Ballard, a favorite haunt of theirs.
The ring was under the seat of the car all this time.
The windows of Zaks were papered and it appeared closed. But when Merriam opened the door, she saw 300 tea lights glowing throughout the dining area and the couple's favorite song, "Falling Slowly" from the movie "Once" on the sound system. She turned around to commiserate with Canlis about it, but he was already on one knee looking up at her. He said: "Rebecca Joy Merriam, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to be on your team forever. Will you marry me?"
Stunned and delighted, she replied, "Yes, please."
Friends and restaurant folks came out and congratulated the couple who were by now in tears.
Last week, the couple flew to Scotland, where Canlis' brother, Matthew, a pastor at a church near St. Andrews, married them on Sept. 27. The newlyweds are back in Seattle now, living, as they say, happily ever after.[[In-content Ad]]
