Backstory

Our story is disgustingly cute and romantic. Like kittens barfing hearts and rainbows. We love it when our friends can revel in our love for each other, but if that’s not your thing – Quick! Click away! Before your heart swells and you contract diabetes!

Sometime in the mid ’80s…

Our story begins with our parents. Steven Flynn, a rock ‘n’ roll, boogie woogie, rhythm and blues piano player, came out to his back yard to find Fran Murphy, a visual artist, minding his son, a 3-year-old Remy, while his wife Claire, a librarian, took a belly dance lesson from Delilah, who was pretty pregnant at the time with Laura Rose’s younger sister Victoria.

Steven asked if Fran would like to come in, to which he replied, “Naw.” And a 30-year friendship began.

Steven, Delilah, Fran, and Claire collaborated and helped each other with many artistic endeavors over the years, with their children in tow. Fran created Steve’s album cover. Steve and Delilah modeled for Fran. Claire helped operate Delilah and Steve’s belly dance retreats in Hawai’i for over 10 years. Laura Rose, Rembrandt, his sister Emma, and Victoria became each others’ favorite family friends with whom to visit.

Did Remy and Laura Rose always have crushes on each other? Well, not exactly. Laura Rose was pretty sure she scared Remy, and while she grew to desire attention, she was more interested in getting him to relax and “be bad” than foster a crush. Remy had a small childhood crush on Laura Rose, but she scared him a little bit. He thought she was way too cool for him. In fact, she established a few precedents for things he grew to find attractive in partners later in life. In middle school, Remy was one of the only mail-order subscribers to Laura Rose and Lorraine’s zine, Crusty. She really thought he was cool then.

But the last time she saw him as a teen, she was making a college film out at his house in Enumclaw and the sullen, angsty, teen Remy barely grunted hello.

While her relationship continued with his parents for the following 10 years, she only heard glimpses of what he was up to with his life. He moved to the south to go to flight school. Oddly…there were a couple of times the thought popped into her head: “what if Remy and I met again and fell madly in love?”

October 2011

So 10 years later Remy got a phone call from a strange 206 number. The area code indicated it may be someone he knew, so he answered. His old family friend told him “I’ve joined the circus and the circus is coming to town. My Dad reminded me you were living in Austin, and I was wondering if you might like to get coffee, or lunch…”

“Or a drink?” he replied.

So Remy came and saw Laura Rose perform with Pure Circus at the Austin Freakshow Festival, and they spent just two evenings exploring Austin – sneaking about in an big old hotel, having fancy ole-timey cocktails, and, with the luck of some circus drama (sometimes a lover’s spat between a contortionist and a clown requires some friendly separation), Laura Rose ended up at Remy’s house, clown in tow. Remy marveled at how deftly she sprinted across his apartment, relieving his anxiety at his projects laid strewn about. He made a vinyl sticker of her troupe’s logo for her purse. As they carefully cut away the vinyl with an Xacto blade, arms crossing, fingers bumping into each other, heads bent towards one another, they both realized there was a palpable tension in the air.

After Laura Rose returned, she and Remy began texting, FaceTiming, or talking on the phone every night. She immediately began asking if he was going to come see his parents for Christmas. When he said yes, she offered him a place to stay if he wanted to be in the city.

December 2011

Basically date number 2: Laura Rose & Remy hosted a moustache party for their friends and family, and attended Santarchy (a giant, dress-up-like-Santa local pub crawl). At the end of the trip he told her, “I think I need to move back here.” Years later he told her that’s when he decided he wanted to marry her.

And now it’s going to get even sweeter. Get your insulin ready.

January 2012

Laura Rose went to London to perform for 8 weeks. During his December visit, she hinted it would be cool if he came to visit. By the time she left in early January, he’d secured tickets. She sent Remy a tiny hand written letter every day she was there. “The longest, smallest love letter” she called it. He began emailing her essays about the 10 things he loved emphatically in the world. They were beautiful writings about who he was as a man in this world and his unique way of seeing it. As they counted down, she soon became aware they would get to number one around the time he got to London. She wrote on a tiny letter:

Remy,
I thought in the days leading up to your arrival, maybe Thursday or Friday, I would write nervously about how I thought I loved you. You’d read them after you got home, and find it cute or perhaps disappointing if I hadn’t told you in person. It would be all that was on my mind for the better part of the weekend…I’d be trying to figure out the right moment… but now, I’m anything but nervous. I want to tell you that I love you. Every time you break me into laughter through text. Every time you crane your head awkwardly to try to feel next to me. Every time you grin, or pause, or look off screen, and I strain to smell your shoulder, or kiss your neck. I want to tell you that I love you. I suspect your daily e-mails [of things you love] might lead up to me…If it doesn’t, yeah, I’ll be disappointed. But I won’t regret this letter. I’m falling madly in love with you. I can’t wait to tell you this in person.

Love,
Laura Rose

His first night in London, there was an unusually heavy snow. After a long, sleepy, crowded, steamy bus ride, in their fancy hotel room on a snow-covered Trafalgar Square, he gave her a handwritten letter:

Number one is you. It had to be – it wouldn’t make sense any other way. A series of love letters about things, if you’re not in them, is just a bunch of letters about things. I fully intended, when I began, to write you a simple series of of letters about a few things I love. Just to share that part of me with you. But in the process of writing them, you became an intrinsic part of every single one… You inspire me to appreciate the world around me in ways I never have before. I have fallen so madly in love with you…

In addition to the hotel on Trafalgar, his trip to London also included staying in a water tower, an old bank, visiting Edinburgh, driving around Scotland looking at castles, an overnight train back to London and three blissful extra days after missing his first flight home. It was a terrific third date.

On his return, he began to put things in order to make the move to Seattle. After she’d been home from London for about a month, Laura Rose came to Austin for a visit (she somehow missed her return flight home as well). They discussed whether or not they should move in together right away. All of their friends had been telling them “no” and then Fuchsia Foxxx said, “Yes! Living separate just because you are supposed to is stupid! If he’s moving here to be with you, go ahead and move in!” Steve’s downstairs apartment renters wanted a bigger space with fewer bands rehearsing overhead. Steve mentioned his daughter and her boyfriend were looking for a place, and nudged them towards some available houses. Laura Rose returned to Austin on a one-way ticket. As Remy and Laura Rose hit the road with a U-Haul full of Remy’s things and a Land Rover in tow, the renters moved out… clearing the way for The Dime Museum.

May 2012

After a road trip taking them both to see the Grand Canyon for the first time, Remy’s first time camping, and a total solar eclipse (viewed from Humbug Mountain), Remy and Laura Rose moved into their new apartment on Remy’s 30th birthday. They turned the place into home quickly, decorating with their weird assortment of costumes, art, and oddities. Laura Rose found some window crayons while unpacking and wrote “Admission 10 cents” on one of the doors.

Hence their home, The Dime Museum, was born.

Art projects, adventures, new jobs, camping, new friends, two Burning Mans, new holiday traditions, and a levelversary (the point at which they’d spent as much time dating in person as they had long distance) all passed and their fondness for each other deepened. They constantly made each other giggle – the Dime Museum’s been a merry place; a place in which they hope their friends and family can find refuge, support, good food, fun times, and a lot of love.

May 2014

She really did climb all the way up on the table for the actual proposal.

On Remy’s 32nd birthday, Laura Rose took him to the Space Needle restaurant for lunch. Remy and Laura Rose both love this city, views of it, and tall buildings. After lunch and before dessert, Laura Rose gave him some presents. He opened a black lacquered box with an inlaid rose design to find a brass engraved plaque for their home,

The Dime Museum. Admission 10 cents. Proprietors Mr. and Mrs. Rembrandt and Laura Rose Murphy

Upon seeing “Laura Rose Murphy” he looked up to find Laura Rose climbing to her knees on top of the table –

I want your joy to be my joy. I want your problems to be my problems. I want your love to be my love. Will you marry me?

Instead of a ring, she offered her name. She released her long-held belief that, if married, her partner would take her name. She would become a Murphy if he would have her. He said yes. They smooched. She climbed down off the table.

February 2015

With the engagement set and wedding plans already underway, Remy still couldn’t resist a counterproposal. Under the premise of walking downtown to see a Saturday matinée, he and Laura Rose were halfway across the Aurora Avenue bridge when she saw a group of people on the other side of the street, walking in the opposite direction. “What’s going on over there?” she asked. “Is that Jade? Those are our friends! What are they doing? Why are your parents with them?”

When Remy stopped her and said, “I have a question to ask you,” she started to catch on.

This isn’t because of patriarchy, or because of tradition, this simply seems like something that everyone deserves to be asked at least once in their lives. I want your problems to be my problems. I want my joy to be your joy. I want your love to be my love. Will you marry me?

At this point – he was already down on one knee, ring in hand – everyone on the other side of the bridge snapped open a white umbrella. Each umbrella had a letter painted on it; together they spelled “W-i-l-l y-o-u m-a-r-r-y m-e-?” She tackled him. They smooched. They never did see that movie.

The Rings

Laura Rose’s ring engagement ring before being turned into the wedding band.

The rings are being made by dear friend and jeweler, Justin Gill. Laura Rose’s is being made from her engagement set, which features black diamonds set in roses. Both rings are two rings of tarnished silver with a resin vein through the middle – which holds the blood of both Laura Rose and Remy.

Blood? That’s creepy. And what’s with all these skulls and hearts anyway?

Laura Rose and Remy feel profoundly grateful for the existence they have and experience on this earth and in these bodies. They honor these physical homes and how profoundly amazing they are. We don’t see blood, bones, or organs as things that represent fear or death, but a celebration of this physical life we have, in which we get to experience each other.