CH Surnames 2000-2009 Marriage

CHAGNON m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-06-25 published
Shelly CHAGNON and John DATSERIS -- Match:
By Judith Tenenbaum, Saturday, June 25, 2005, Page M5
Despite co-starring in Eugčne Ionesco's Killing Game and being the only two in their 1996 Brock University graduating theatre class chosen as teaching assistants in their final year, Friends Shelly Lynne CHAGNON, and John DATSERIS never explored amour. Opportunity lost, they drifted off, seemingly destined for separate spheres. It was Toronto's storm of the century in January, 1999, that precipitated their romance.
Stranded at her work at the Canadian Stage Company, Ms. CHAGNON, then a Burlington resident, was rescued by performer Peter JULL, a former Brock classmate who lived nearby, and coincidentally was Mr. DATSERIS's new roommate. Despite having worked all night, Mr. DATSERIS, in an act of noblesse oblige, yielded his as-yet-unwrapped queen-sized bed to Ms. CHAGNON. " Shelly got to sleep in my bed before I did," he laughs.
"We were snowed in, and Peter disappeared. It was two days of Survivor, that was the reality," Mr. DATSERIS says. They played charades, read scripts and reminisced. Mr. DATSERIS recalls that by the time Peter returned, the relationship had begun to blossom.
Still, Ms. CHAGNON says, "it took a while to realize we were dating. March 21, we went to an Oscar party of Brock graduates, and... that was our first official date."
The two had been working next to each other for a while by the time of the snowstorm, but their paths had never crossed. Upon graduation, Mr. DATSERIS took an entrepreneurial path while continuing to write. "I began to pursue film on the production side to greater understand producing and the creative process," he said. With an associate, he opened an animation company, Fly Paper Creations, and set up shop at Berkeley Castle next to Canadian Stage, where Ms. CHAGNON was planning special events and fundraisers.
With only a sister and his parents in Canada, Mr. DATSERIS was drawn to Ms. CHAGNON's large French-Canadian family. "They adopted me right away," he says. "There was this synergy, where I fit in. Falling in love with her family made me fall more in love with Shelly."
His father had hoped Mr. DATSERIS would find a Greek girl. "You don't understand," Mr. DATSERIS told him. "Her family might as well be Greek: They are loud, drink, eat great food, love talk, politics and are emotional." His father acquiesced: "Okay, same people."
Their lives began to mesh, but the pair, now both 32, put marriage on hold as they pursued career aspirations. Mr. DATSERIS worked for Brainstorm, a communications agency that purchased his business, for several years, then he moved on to Capital C Communications, where he's now Director Interactive. Ms. CHAGNON ventured to Rogers Television, where she is a publicist, and she also finds time to volunteer for a Scarborough theatre group, Stage Centre Productions. Her accolades include: two 2003 Rogers Impression Awards for Outstanding Promotional Campaign for the Hometown Hockey Campaign and a 2004 Galaxi Award for a Rogers campaign highlighting coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival.
Their first years together were bittersweet. Tragically, Mr. DATSERIS's mother succumbed to cancer, and a year later his father died of the same affliction. "Shelly committed to helping us, not only emotionally but coming to the hospital," he says.
Meanwhile, as the housing market inflated, in May, 2002, they made a practical foray into home ownership on the fringe of the Beaches. "It's small -- we refer to it as Queensbury Cottage. Of course we were house-broke, and couldn't afford a wedding," Ms. CHAGNON chuckles.
The death of her grandmother, the family matriarch, also pushed thoughts of marriage further away. As time went on and their grief subsided, Mr. DATSERIS took the initiative.
He commissioned goldsmith Leif BENNER to design a ring. It was a princess cut diamond, vines and leaves engraved with smaller diamonds inlaid in the vines and leaves spilling onto the side of the ring, and similarly on the wedding band, channel set with square cut diamonds.
However, creativity takes time, and his intended July proposal became an impromptu November, 2004, event.
On June 5, a snake appeared from the ravine at Mississauga's Glenerin Inn just before Reverend Tina GABRIEL performed the nuptials. That aboriginal symbol of life force and sexual potency mirrored the couple's shift in priorities: to begin a family, grow their roots, get closer to extended family, have fun and travel.