Shelby Brewer and John Lyon dreamed of being together their entire lives, but it took them a while to hammer out the details.

“We like to say that art brought us together because that’s how we met: through art events,” Shelby says.

She was the communications manager for the Arkansas Arts Council in 2009 when she met John, then a reporter for the Arkansas News Bureau. John was speaking with the late Matt DeCample during an assignment at the Governor’s Arts Awards ceremony when Shelby stepped forward and joined the conversation.

“When there was a moment of silence, I said to him, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’” John says.

To be honest, he already knew who she was. He recognized her from Facebook — her profile had come up time and again as a friend suggestion, and he had read several of her comments on mutual friends’ posts.

DeCample obeyed.

“Then I added her as a friend on Facebook,” says John.

He enjoyed the funny anecdotes she told about her days.

“I knew she had a good sense of humor, and it was nice to see,” he says.

He started commenting on her posts and liking them.

“He liked every post I made and I liked his posts because he has a sense of self-deprecation,” she says.

Shelby recognized John’s name because she interned at the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith before moving to Little Rock. Around that time, he himself moved from Oklahoma to Fort Smith to work as a reporter for that paper in 2000.

This went on for years.

“I was never sure what her dating status was. I just thought she was so pretty that I was sure she had a boyfriend,” John says.

In 2016, he read something on Facebook that indicated she was single and he asked her out for dinner. They went to an Asian restaurant.

“I remember they put us right up next to the speakers and the music was really loud that night. We could barely hear each other, so we just yelled at each other,” Shelby said.

They only went out a few times together, but continued to follow each other on social media. In 2017, Shelby learned that John had been fired as a reporter.

“I felt really sorry for him,” she says. “I know what it’s like to not have a job because I got laid off too, so I just went into the city and looked for jobs for him. I went on Indeed.com and searched every day and I just kept sending him jobs.”

One of the job postings she sent led to him being hired as strategic communications manager at the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.

“I was really touched because a lot of people I knew said, ‘Hey, if I hear about a new job, I’ll send it to you,'” he says. “But Shelby has researched a lot of jobs and no one else has done that for me, so I really appreciated it.”

A year after he got the job, he asked if he could take her out to dinner to thank her.

“And if she had just wanted to be friends, I would still have thanked her,” he says.

In 2019, they adopted a cat, Ella, and soon after found themselves locked together in a small space at the start of the COVID pandemic.

They had been dating for four years when John proposed on Shelby’s birthday in September 2022, during a weekend trip to Hot Springs.

“We had an Airbnb right on the lake and we had a really fun day in Hot Springs just walking around,” Shelby says. “We went to a really fancy restaurant for dinner because it was my birthday weekend. And when we got back to our Airbnb he lit some candles outside — we had a little table and chairs — and he played our favorite song on his phone and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.”

John hadn’t exactly planned the proposal.

“I had the ring in my pocket and I still didn’t know if this was the perfect moment or not,” he says. “Then at one point Shelby said, ‘Are you going to propose to me tonight?’ And I said, ‘Oh, ha ha, funny.'”

They were married on October 12, 2023 in the chapel of the Eureka Springs Tree Houses.

“I found this beautiful dress from the ’50s or ’60s for only $40 at a yard sale,” she says. “It fit perfectly, like it was meant to be.”

Shelby left public relations to work in retail and focus on her art, creating hand-cut collages of cats from old photographs and books.

John browses the book sections of thrift stores as he accompanies her on trips to find art supplies. He also accompanies her to markets on the weekends, where he helps her set up tents and tables so she can sell her creations.

“He goes with me to every market,” she says. “That’s really something special.”

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The first time I saw my future husband:

She says: “It wasn’t love at first sight. But I did find him interesting.”

He says, “I thought she was even more beautiful in real life than on Facebook.”

On our wedding day:

She says: “I felt really lucky. He’s such a great man and I’d been single for a long time. I just thought to myself that I was just so lucky to have found him, especially later in life. I felt like a princess in a fairy tale.”

He says, “We got married outside of our castle and she was like a princess. It was a beautiful ceremony and we wrote our own vows and Shelby’s were hilarious.”

My advice for a long and happy marriage:

She says, “I just think honesty. I’ve been so honest with John, just open about everything. I think that’s the key to a long, lasting marriage because you just can’t keep things from each other.”

He says: “A sense of humour is important because life can be pretty tough and if you can laugh at what you’re going through, it makes it a little bit better. Also, find someone who you can be yourself with. If you feel like you can’t be completely yourself with the person you’re with, you’re probably not with the right person.”