Jenny Long has always liked the way Bryan Brown sounds. He wanted to hear more from her right from the beginning.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
He says: “She looked beautiful. She had these really big distinctive eyes. Our son has those eyes, and I love that.”
She says: “I thought he was a really good bass player.”
On our wedding day:
He says: “I had some alone time that day, and I found myself with a block of free time before I was meeting up with my groomsmen and I got a cup of coffee on Dickson Street. I had this really nice walk all the way down Dickson Street and back up with my coffee. It was this almost meditative time because everything before and after, for about the next week, was really hectic.”
She says: “I don’t like being the center of attention so I kind of just wanted to get that part over with.”
My advice for a happy marriage:
He says: “Communication is key. Stay positive. We’re both pretty positive — we’re not doom-and-gloom type folks.”
She says: “I think it’s important to have that friendship foundation and be able to enjoy the person you’re with.”
Jenny grew up in Siloam Springs -- Bryan in Fayetteville. In 1997, when she was about 14, she started going with her sister and their friends to Clunk Music Hall in Fayetteville to watch shows for kids under 21.
Bryan, then 16, played bass for the Paper Hearts.
"We loved their band, and we had a lot of opportunities to see them because they were friends with the guy who owned the place, and they played there all the time," Jenny says. "He was at other shows, too. It wasn't always just [with] his band where I would see him, he would be in the audience a lot of times, too."
Jenny didn't pay any special attention to Bryan back then, though.
"I actually had a really big crush on the singer, who was not him," she says. "I was not interested in him like that at that point. I don't think he was interested in me like that either."
He wasn't.
The first time he really noticed her was a few years later, when they were both regulars at Arsaga's at the Depot on Dickson Street in Fayetteville.
"I remember thinking, 'Gosh, that girl is so pretty,'" he says. "I never did go up and talk to her. She seemed really quiet, and I wasn't really super shy but I wasn't like super outgoing to where I would walk up to a girl and start talking to her."
But then Jenny's sister started dating one of Bryan's friends and they found themselves in the same small circle of friends. At some point the gang ended up at Lake Wedington together.
"We actually sat next to each other with our feet in the water. She also didn't talk to me then. Well, I mean, we chatted, but she was still really quiet," Bryan says.
They exchanged AOL online names while they were sitting there, though, and Bryan soon realized she was chattier online.
"We were really just friends -- at first," he says. "It wasn't romantic at first, we were just chatting and talking about music and stuff."
They saw music shows together, went to movies and ate dinners. They were sitting on the front porch at Bryan's house chatting one night when their friendship took a turn.
"We kissed. It just sort of happened .... Eventually I think I just realized I had really strong feelings for him," Jenny says.
They were spending the weekend at some friends' apartment in Kansas City, Mo., in 2008 when they formally defined their relationship as boyfriend/girlfriend.
"I had always assumed it but she wanted it to be an official thing. I was like, 'Oh, that's so high school,'" Bryan chuckles.
On Father's Day 2010, Jenny and Bryan were driving from Fayetteville to Siloam Springs to spend the day with her dad. They were early, and Bryan suggested they drive out to Natural Falls State Park near West Siloam Springs, Okla., before going to her parents' house. Jenny's parents had been married there, back when it was called Dripping Springs.
"I said, 'Let's go out to the waterfall and look around,'" he says. "She just said, 'OK.'"
Bryan proposed to Jenny that day, kneeling by the waterfall. They were married on May 7, 2011, at The Garden Room in Fayetteville.
The Browns, who live in Fayetteville, have a 2-year-old son, Covy, and are expecting their second son, Miles, in about a month.
Jenny is a librarian at Gentry Middle School. Bryan is a network engineering specialist with Tyson Foods Inc. He plays in the band The Good Fear now, with some of his old band mates from Paper Hearts.
Jenny didn't think of Bryan as a potential spouse when she saw him on the stage when she was 14. He didn't see her as a mate when he saw her at the coffee shop, even years later.
"Back then I would wonder who I was going to end up with, who would I fall in love with. I would think, 'Is she someone close by? Is she far away right now?'" he says. "It turned out she was someone I already knew."
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High Profile on 08/14/2016