If you watch TV, read magazines or look at billboards, chances are pretty good you’ve seen Joshua and Tanyalee Pearson.
He’s handsome. She’s gorgeous. They look totally smitten with each other.
They’re literally a poster success story for eHarmony.com, the site upon which they met and fell in love.
Monday when I chatted with Tanyalee inside her clothing boutique, Ability, in downtown Redding, she quickly recited the couple’s chronological history.
On Oct. 13, 2006 they spoke on the phone for the first time. Coincidentally it was the same day she opened her business.
On Oct. 21 Joshua flew from his home in Missouri to California to meet Tanyalee for three days. While here, he also met her family.
“He was the first guy my mom ever liked,” she said.
Apparently, Tanyalee liked him, too.
On Oct. 26 she flew to Missouri to see Joshua and meet his family.
On Oct. 30 he got down on his knees and proposed to Tanyalee.
She liked the question so much she asked if he’d please ask her again.
And again.
“He asked me three times in something like five minutes,” Tanyalee said.
“Of course I said yes every time.”
Come July 7 they will celebrate their second wedding anniversary.
They married in Chicago (where she has family), and they lived in Missouri for a while, while Joshua, who’s a chemist, worked on his education.
They’re back in Redding where they live.
Joshua teaches chemistry at Simpson College.
And Tanyalee, who graduated at the top of her class at FIDM, an L.A. fashion school, and who worked as wardrobe stylist to the stars (oh, Tom Hanks, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan) – now does the same work in Redding at Ability, her appointment-only clothing boutique at 1416 Tehama Street. It’s an open, airy, artistic place adorned with the couple’s murals and paintings, and clothing displayed like gallery pieces.
(Prices: $40 per hour for personal shopping – both picking out clothes in advance and/or taking the client shopping. $350 for wardrobe consulting’s first three hours, then $50 per hour after that. Tanyalee said she averages about three to four hours in a client’s closet.)
In their spare time the couple decided to create, promote, publish, market and sell “your little guide” – a square, four-color glossy map printed on black paper that opens up to reveal local 57 local businesses. On your little guide’s back is a map of all the businesses. You might have seen stacks of the guides around Redding, where sometimes the booklets sell for $1, and other times businesses give them away. (The “your little guide” advertisers can buy the guides and then choose whether to sell or give them to customers.
Tanyalee credits her husband with the guide’s idea.
“He’d lived in Redding for a year and he said, ‘You know what – Redding is a really hard place to get around. We need a guide so people know where to find things.”
They’re now working on a “your little guide” for Chico.
Meanwhile, they remain an eHarmony.com dream come true, which has given them lots of exposure on many commercials. Invariably, it begs a frequent question
Were they – are they – well-paid for all that eHarmony.com exposure?
Tanyalee just laughs.
“You know how in small print it says, ‘These are not paid actors?’ – Well, they aren’t kidding,” she said. “Everyone’s like, ‘You must have made a killing!’ We didn’t get any money from eHarmony. Oh, they did buy an eHarmony ad in our guide. That’s it. But you know what? That’s OK. We have each other. That’s all we ever wanted.”
Ability is at 1416 Tehama St. in downtown Redding. To reach Tanyalee call 776.5151 or email her at abilityboutique@yahoo.com.
Click on the YouTubes below to see a variety of eHarmony commercials in which Tanyalee and Joshua were featured.
Here’s another eHarmony ad.
And another …
Click here to see another.
And click here to see another.
Finally, and click here for one more.
