Meet: Ashley Outlaw’s natural expression puts people off. “It looks like I’m angry all the time,” she explains. “People find that to be unapproachable.”
But it didn’t faze Matthew Ito. Outlaw moved to Colorado from Oklahoma to attend the Bel-Rea Institute of Animal Technology. While in school, she worked part time at the Home Depot in Glendale. That’s where she met Ito, who was the electrical department manager at the time.
“She was like this beautiful girl that everybody was afraid to talk to,” he says. “Everyone was really intimidated by her, but I asked her out. I just walked up to her register, and I asked if she wanted to come have a few drinks and play Trivial Pursuit with some of us.”
“Matt had a tendency to ask a lot of the cashiers out. People had warned me about him,” she says, “but I just saw it as an opportunity to get to know my co-workers. It never occurred to me that he was asking me out. I’m nice if people approach me, but I don’t approach them.”
Match: She noticed his competitive streak; sometimes those game nights went on endlessly. He admired her love of animals. She saw how he accepted unconventional situations. (He lived with three lesbians – sort of a modern “Three’s Company.”)
He realized she needed to laugh more. “I have a bit of a temper,” Outlaw explains. “I hold grudges, but Matt’s the only person who can make me laugh at myself. We’ve never had a true argument in the time we’ve been together. He’s just so lighthearted that it helps me take things with a grain of salt.”
Even though Outlaw grew up believing that you “did not bother other people with your problems,” she accepted Ito’s offer to live together, when hard financial times hit. “It just felt right to be near him,” she says.
“I thought, ‘Here’s the perfect time,”‘ adds Ito. “I didn’t want her to go anywhere.”
Marry: Ito decided to propose a year before he actually did. Outlaw says she knew about the custom ring for “a good 10 months because his mom can’t keep a secret.” But as time wore on, Outlaw began to wonder if Ito had changed his mind. Then, the morning after her 21st birthday, Ito brought her breakfast in bed and proposed. “You know,” he says, “we’re getting married because there is no one more perfect.”
They’d originally considered a small wedding, perhaps a quick trip to Vegas, but Ito’s parents encouraged otherwise. So, Ito’s uncle and aunt, Ray and Anita Rossi, agreed to host the wedding on their 100-acre farm near Hudson. Some 200 guests sat on bales of straw during the short civil ceremony, which took place just behind the new farmhouse. Guests then drove between the pumpkin patch and cow yards to reach the barns for the reception, where a freshly butchered hog topped the menu.
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