Camas couple celebrate First Friday with wedding

CAMAS — Like any great romance, the love story of Nick Calais and Tami Weidert began with a song.

It was the summer of 2012, and Calais was saying goodbye to some friends before heading to graduate school in California. Weidert was out with some girlfriends, who also knew Calais’ friends. The two hadn’t met before, but there was a decision to combine their friend groups, and after some conversation with Weidert, Calais was ready to make his move. He’d been peppering the bartender at Portland’s Splash Bar to play Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” and once it finally came on, Calais handed Weidert his phone number, which he’d written on a piece of paper.

“It was kind of true,” Weidert, 33, recalls before singing the opening lyrics. “Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But here’s my number. Call me maybe.”

There was no maybe about it, as the pair started keeping in touch over the phone, since Calais was in California. Their first date came three weeks later, when they went on a group hike with friends — Weidert still wasn’t quite comfortable with a one-on-one hiking date. And then, two months after they met, Calais, 31, realized they’d been calling or texting each other daily and thought, “I’m in a relationship.”

Fast-forward to today, and the couple’s effort, care and love have paved the way to their 2 p.m. wedding at the Liberty Theatre in Camas. But what made the wedding possible is the support of businesses, government officials and regular folks in Camas, who are helping them throw “A Wedding Affair to Remember,” which is the downtown Camas First Friday celebration for February. It includes their wedding (Camas Mayor Scott Higgins will do the honors), as well as a celebration that runs until 8 p.m.

This is a fitting matrimony for the couple, who first attended Camas First Friday in April 2015 and have been represented at every First Friday since — Weidert has missed a couple, and Calais, an occupational therapist for the Camas School District, has made them all, in case you’re keeping score. It’s also fitting that their inaugural First Friday was “Spring into History,” an examination of the city’s past. After they get married at the Liberty, Calais and Weidert will become the first couple to have ever had a First Friday wedding — giving them their own piece of Camas history.

Calais and Weidert’s history started with long-distance dating, when they’d send each other hand-written notes, candygrams and care packages. A silly, cliche card with a cat saying, “just thinking of you. Hang in there,” while Calais studied for midterms. When they’d visit each other over a weekend, they’d leave a love journal behind, which included recaps of their favorite dates during the weekend, such as the time Weidert got closest to the hole on a golf date. Calais would hide the journal under Weidert’s pillow. Weidert would slip it in Calais’ backpack or a drawer.

“You have to do that with long distance,” says Weidert, who’s the director of sales and hospitality for Touchmark, a full-service retirement community company. “You don’t have the physical presence of being able to hold someone’s hand or connect that way.”

The couple has Downtown Camas Association Director Carrie Schulstad to thank for their wedding idea. Weidert and Calais ran into Schulstad at the January 2017 First Friday. Schulstad stopped the couple and asked how the wedding planning was going. Weidert vented about how she couldn’t find a wedding idea that was inclusive enough. Schulstad suggested a First Friday wedding, but it took a couple of follow-ups with Schulstad before Weidert started to realize it might really happen.

Weidert and Calais enjoy First Friday because it is free, fun and has helped them developed a deep connection with the Camas community.

For Calais, who’s from the Bay Area and moved to Vancouver about four years ago, First Friday has given him a large group of friendly faces he now recognizes when he journeys downtown. For Weidert, First Friday and the Camas community reminds her of Athena, Ore., her hometown of about 1,200 people.

At age 17, Weidert, who went to the state tennis tournament, was selected for a tennis trip to Spain. The only hitch? It cost $2,000, which was a tough ask for a teenager. So her community pitched in. One woman had Weidert mow her lawn each week for $20. A couple women made blankets and raffled them off to help Weidert raise money. She made her trip to Spain, played on grass and clay courts and had a blast.

Now, with her wedding, the Camas community is supplying cake, portable toilets, hair and makeup styling, tents, food, photography and an entire theatre to host it. The couple worked on 25 thank-you gifts last weekend to show their gratitude.

“I’ve always felt like community, that’s where you feel grounded,” Weidert says. “They support you, and everyone comes to celebrate you and everyone comes to help. And you do that for other people, too. It’s the cycle of love and support. … That’s practically our whole wedding. Everyone has rallied together. It’s like I’m getting a huge hug from everyone.”