Romance Behind The Scenery At Pennsylvania Ballet
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The ballet may be one of the most romantic settings in the world but for one Philadelphia couple, it's just a day at the office. They'll have Valentine's dinner at home, tonight, but they live romance every day as principal dancers for the Pennsylvania Ballet.
Lauren Fadeley and Francis Veyette first met in 1997. She was 12 and he was 17 and they were thrown together for a publicity photo at the Rock Ballet school.
"I'd never done partnering before and here's this guy lifting me over his head," Fadeley recalls. "I would never forget that."
"That picture was still in the bottom of the Rock School ten years later, when she came and joined the company," says Veyette. "She came across the room when we were paired to dance together and was like, "There's a picture of us downstairs...." and I had never known who that was until she told me."
They were paired a lot when she first joined the company but were just friends until they performed together in Peter Quanz's "Jupiter Symphony."
"I was in the Corps and he was a soloist, and it was my first big part and I got to dance with him, and it was very romantic and that was when we first started officially being together being together, because we were spending so much time together," she says.
Marriage followed three years later.
"We've crammed a lot of marriage into three years," says Veyette. "A lot of married couples leave each other and go to separate jobs during the day but we are together all day, every day and that comes with its own challenges but it's also very comforting. The best thing about our relationship is, if I'm having a bad day, she always right there."
Fadeley agrees. "The ballet world can get very dramatic and exhausting," she says. "I feel that I have more confidence in myself and my dancing just knowing that you have someone there who supports you no matter what."
So no need for a fancy, prix-fixe dinner where they can't even order what they really want. The day pales next to the one they mark each year on the anniversary of their first date. They'll be "at home, doing nothing," Veyette says with a laugh.
"Sounds perfect," says Fadeley. "It's all I want."
