It started with red tulips and purple irises delivered to VIP Hair & Nails Salon owner Tiffany Wilson around Valentine's Day, along with a mysterious anonymous note about how they might meet in the future. "Regards," the note ended, formally.
As one of Minnesota's most beautiful people, outside and inside, Wilson might be expected to have a secret admirer. She assumed this was someone who knew her because red tulips are her favorite flowers. So Wilson wasn't curious or concerned. She graciously accepts life as it comes anyway -- even the rough parts like the 2008 death of her boyfriend, WCCO-TV sports guy Bob Rainey. I'm pretty sure Wilson and Rainey would have married had his second bout with cancer not claimed Bob.
A few months later, her 2010 secret admirer was ready to disclose his identity along with some more flowers.
However, Wilson wasn't quite so ready when she phoned me Nov. 11 to say she had something to tell me, but the news had to be delivered in person. That's fine. We hung up. I called right back and asked if she was engaged. "Nooo!" she said, in a tone that suggested this was the silliest question I'd ever asked. We hung up, again. I called back a second time to ask if she was moving to Paris, a dream of hers. Again, no.
"I'm dating somebody and it's serious," said Wilson when we met up. "You had lunch with him. He's a lawyer, Jerry Blackwell. Remember when I got those tulips? He sent them."
Now of the Blackwell Burke law firm in Minneapolis, he and I had lunch back when his firm had a different name, was located in Edina, and I believe he was representing Prince.
Things have been moving pretty fast since Blackwell disclosed his identity to Wilson. She tells me they eat dinner together almost every night. One night in November, Blackwell proffered a very large engagement ring, which was accepted by Wilson, whose dimples are practically beaming. She said they're planning an island destination ceremony for Feb. 14, 2011. It will be his second marriage, her first. Congrats.
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