Victoria VanBruinisse (live-show editor and photographer for Three Imaginary Girls) and Ana Wright (singer/songwriter) are two of the most ridiculously in-love people you could ever hope to meet. On the eve of what could be an historic election, VanBruinisse chatted with me about finding modern love and her very musical journey toward matrimony.
SW: How did you guys meet?
VanBruinisse: OkCupid! They say that “it’s the Google of online dating,” which would be true if Google hit a home run to your query one out of . . . oh, every 200 times.
And did her musical choices on Ok affect your choosing her (or her choosing you)?
Holy shit, absolutely. Her first message to me (I like to think we chose each other, but she threw the first line out across the interwebs) was mostly about a mutual love for the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. Her descriptives made me realize that we’d likely be able to hold a conversation in real life pretty easily.
What’s your favorite musical relationship memory?
One of the best has to be the time on one of our earlier dates when I was in her kitchen making guacamole to take to a party, and she sat down at the piano in the living room and started flawlessly knocking out a Cat Power song. My heart still swoons just thinking about that sunny little moment, up to my wrists in avocados and sun coming in the window.
Do you have a “song”?
I did open up the first mix I gave her with “No, I Can’t” by the Mountain Goats and closed it with [Neko Case’s] “That Teenage Feeling”—so those have always been little cute “A-ha!” tunes for us.
If the good people of Washington state grant you the right to marry, what song will be the first dance at your wedding?
Well, the obvious choice would have to be “At Last” by Etta James, just for the unbeatable direct message. Actually, I’d like to hear that over a sound system while a thousand happy queer and queer-allied couples danced, not just Ana and I—all freshly married in a movie scene, mere moments after we heard the vote had passed.
