Colea Blann and Raymond Long were both opposed to having lunch together on Feb. 28, 2020, but at the end of their blind date they were in favor of spending the rest of the day together.
A friend of Colea's family was their matchmaker.
"Unbeknownst to me, he and my mom were working in the background to find me someone to date here in Arkansas," she says. "I had a long stint of long-distance relationships."
Raymond worked for the Urban League of Arkansas at the time.
"One of my board members walked into the office one day and told me he had a young lady that he wanted me to meet," Raymond says.
He was working in the organization's Northwest Arkansas office when that board member called him a few months later.
"He said, 'She's ready to meet you. Can you get to Little Rock in three hours?'" Raymond says. "He told me to put on a suit because he told her I was an up-and-coming nonprofit executive."
The family friend had texted Colea that morning to ask if he could introduce her to Raymond. She was not in a huge rush to do that, she admits.
"I was single, living my best life," Colea says.
They were going to the Little Rock Club, and she reasoned that, if nothing else, she would enjoy a good lunch.
"She looked like a goddess," Raymond says.
He asked what she planned to order.
"She snapped her fingers as she said, 'I want you to know I'm not a salad-eating chick.' She's like, 'I'm going straight for the prime rib,'" he remembers. "As a guy who loves to eat and loves the Little Rock eating scene, I thought, 'Oh, this is my type of woman.'"
Their matchmaker had introduced them, stayed for lunch and then left, giving them a chance to get to know each other better.
"I wouldn't say I'm a smooth guy, but at this moment, lunch is over and I used the smoothest line that I will probably ever use," says Raymond. "I said, 'Colea, can I have the rest of your day?'"
Colea, never having been asked this before, was impressed.
"But it was the primary election, early voting, and I said, 'When I leave here I have to go vote,'" she says. "In hindsight it was almost my way of seeing if he was civically engaged."
Raymond was game.
"At the poll is where she kind of realized she was truly dating an up-and-coming nonprofit executive because people knew me because of my community work," he says.
That weekend, they spent time together at Riverfront Park and Pinnacle Mountain.
"We had brunch at Red Door, we did a wine-tasting at Zin and on top of that we went to church at St. Mark Baptist Church that Sunday," he says. "I had just joined and she had been there her entire life."
Just weeks after they met, the covid pandemic forced Raymond and Colea's packed schedules almost to a grinding halt.
"All we had to do was to get to know each other and talk, outside," Colea says. "I feel like most of our dating was just long walks and getting to know each other without any distractions."
They got engaged on New Year's Eve that year, in the state Capitol rotunda. Raymond had just been appointed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson to the Arkansas Juvenile Justice Coalition, and he called in a favor that allowed him to take Colea into the building after hours, under the pretense of being there on official business.
Afterward, they went to Colea's mother's house to share the news.
"Rodney Block was playing the trumpet upstairs in the living room," Colea says. "There were flowers everywhere and Raymond had gotten these huge 'R' and 'C' letters decorated with poinsettias created in my mom's living room."
He had livestreamed the proposal for their friends and family around the country. From there they went back to her house, and she was surprised to find it packed with their friends, there to celebrate and ring in the New Year with them.
"It was to make her feel special and to show her how I felt," he says. "I like to say I felt like I married a favor of God."
By the time Raymond proposed, he and Colea had been through two rounds of premarital counseling. That would be followed by a round of engagement counseling.
"We wanted many different opinions to make sure that we started out on the right foot for this lifelong marriage plan," Raymond says.
They were married on June 11, 2022, at Legacy Acres in Conway.
Colea is a registered nurse and works as a clinical specialist with Medtronic. Raymond is the corporate giving program officer at Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Voting together on their first date turned into a tradition. They go to the polls together for every election.
"That was such a great start to our relationship considering that my career is rooted in service and philanthropy. One of her values is just taking care of humankind. She is definitely a humanitarian at the core," Raymond says. "We have committed to a life of service ever since."
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: "He was handsome and he wore a suit well."
He says: "When she came up the elevator I thought to myself, 'I want her.'"
On our wedding day:
She says: "We went into a storage closet and just had a moment to ourselves. We just took a moment where we could just be like, 'We're married.'"
He says: "The wedding said a lot about who I married. My bride planned the wedding. It was an elegant event and it truly represented her."
My advice for a long happy marriage:
She says: "Give yourself grace, give your spouse grace and never forget to just have fun."
He says: "Don't put your marriage on auto-pilot. We learned at a marriage conference this year that 'You're either moving toward oneness or you're drifting toward isolation.'"
Colea Blann and Raymond Long were married on June 11, 2022. Raymond was intentional about “courting” Colea, including giving her flowers every Thursday. He dressed as a nurse and presented flowers to her at the hospital where she worked, had several Trader Joe’s employees present her with bouquets he had bought for her while they walked around in the store, and surprised her at Family Dollar, among other #flowerthursday antics. (Photo by Uche Onyeyiri/Skytouch Photography)