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NYC chaperones become in-laws to future bride

“We knew we wanted to be married within a couple of months,” the former Lakresha Gray says of her and her husband, Tommy Diaz. The couple were married on Aug. 6, 2000.
“We knew we wanted to be married within a couple of months,” the former Lakresha Gray says of her and her husband, Tommy Diaz. The couple were married on Aug. 6, 2000.

Tommy Diaz, in a roundabout way, asked Lakresha Gray to go out with his parents before he asked her to go out with him. His parents, it turned out, made great chaperones.

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Special to the Democrat-Gazette

Tommy and Lakresha Diaz volunteered together at the Bahai center’s children’s theater in Manhattan. Now she’s a teacher and makes all of his costumes and props for Tommy’s magic act, Tommy Terrific’s Wacky Magic. “We are growing together all the time,” he says.

They soon made great in-laws, too.

The first time I saw my future spouse:

She says: “He was cute. He didn’t see me when I saw him. He had on a necklace with a ring on it. I asked him about it later and found out it was a ring his mom had given him.”

He says: “She was gorgeous. We were at the Bahai center in Manhattan. And I remember she was wearing a red sundress.”

On our wedding day:

She says: “We danced together in a little garden after the ceremony while our photographer took pictures. I had been late getting there but all the stress of the day melted away in that shadowy, green area.”

He says: “Our harpist didn’t show up and Lakresha was supposed to walk down the aisle while the harpist played, so we had to scramble to figure out what to do. My friend hummed this beautiful Bahai song, ‘A Nightingale in Paradise,’ while Lakresha walked down the aisle. It was almost better, the way it ended up.”

My advice for a long, happy marriage:

She says: “The partner you choose should be someone who wants to be a better person, better than they are today. You really should be kind to each other. Even if you’re angry, you still need to be kind.”

He says: “You have to be willing to grow together. You can’t be so set in your ways.”

In September 1999, Tommy, who is from North Little Rock, was in New York looking for acting gigs after graduating from Northwestern University in Chicago.

Lakresha grew up in Arizona and in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and traveled the world after high school. She secured a nanny position in New York so she could spend a year there.

They were both members of the Bahai community in Manhattan and volunteered with the children's theater there -- she taught art class and he taught drama.

That's where Lakresha first saw Tommy, but he didn't see her until the next morning, as he waited for a friend after the morning devotional.

Intrigued, he walked over to chat. His parents were coming to visit the next week, he told her. He had just started a new job working midnight to 8 a.m., and he slept during the day, except when he auditioned.

"I was like, 'I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my parents while they're in New York. What am I going to do? How am I going to show them around the big city?'" he says.

Lakresha offered to help. She got the children in her charge ready for school each morning and then was free until she picked them up in the afternoons.

"I said I could take them somewhere because I hadn't gone anywhere or done anything yet," she says.

A group from the Bahai center was going to a craft fair on the upper west side that afternoon and Tommy and Lakresha tagged along. Someone had free tickets to a concert at the Juilliard School, so they all went there next.

"I made sure I sat next to Lakresha," Tommy says.

The concert was actually a youth recital.

"It was horrible, and we were realizing how bad it was, but we didn't want to say that," Lakresha says. "At some point, though, we turned to each other and said, 'This is really bad. Do you want to leave?'"

They grabbed lunch at a dive, and did a little more sightseeing before parting ways.

Lakresha's offer had been to escort Tommy's parents around the Big Apple while he slept, but as it turned out he couldn't stand to miss out on the fun.

"Anytime they went out with her I was there, too," he says.

He and Lakresha went with his parents through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, meals out and on a boat cruise around Manhattan.

After his parents' visit, the family Lakresha worked for went out of town and she invited him over for dinner.

"She made pesto. Being a kid who grew up in Arkansas on, like, canned green beans, I had never had pesto," he says. "That's when I was like, I really like this girl because I'm eating this food that I've never heard of before, and I have no idea what it is."

They sat on the balcony overlooking the East River that night, and they kissed for the first time.

"On my way home, I was just dancing toward the subway. I was just walking on air," he says.

Lakresha was head over heels in love.

"The first two weeks I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep," Lakresha says. "I was kind of just nervous all the time. We knew we wanted to be married within a couple of months but we knew we needed to wait."

Tommy proposed in February 2000.

"But at that point we had been working on the invitations," he says.

They went to their usual hangout, the Mansion Diner, after seeing Miss Saigon and Lakresha was surprised to hear that the restaurant was out of her favorite dish.

"[The waiter] said, 'I am sorry, we have no more pancakes. But we do have this,'" Tommy says. "And then on his platter, he had the ring, and so I took the ring and knelt down on my knee in the middle of the diner and proposed."

They were married on Aug. 6, 2000, at Wildwood Park for the Arts in Little Rock.

Lakresha designed a comic strip-inspired wedding invitation, bought a sewing machine and made her own Shakespearean period-style dress as well as a vest for Tommy. They requested a breakfast reception that featured a wedding cake made of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Tommy and Lakresha lived in New York for seven years after they married. Tommy added a magic act to his repertoire, and nine years ago he and Lakresha moved to Little Rock so he could pursue that act, Tommy Terrific's Wacky Magic, full time. Lakresha is a teacher in the Little Rock School District.

Being in Little Rock also allows Tommy and Lakresha's children -- Theo, 5, Amelia, 8, and Tyus, 12 -- to grow up close to their grandparents.

"We bought an old rundown historic house and invested money to fix it up," Tommy says. "We are having fun."

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:

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High Profile on 08/21/2016

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