Us
Our Story
We almost met in 2005, when Stu attended Mariana’s flatmate’s graduation party, but Mariana had a quieter night in mind... Instead of joining the wild party (and it was a big one), she celebrated her last night in Wales in her pyjamas with her now bridesmaid Susana. So, although we might have brushed shoulders in the corridor, we only came to meet three years later.
Sometimes we wonder what would have happened had we met then. But perhaps the years that followed were essential in bringing us together and making us appreciate how lucky we are to have found each other! So Mariana flew back home to Portugal and Stu went to… Milton Keynes, of all places.
Our paths finally crossed again in 2008 at The Nags Head in Angel. Our love wasn’t the lightening bolt type that strikes fast and is over in a flash; what we found on that cold Winter day was a spark, an immediate admiration for each other and our passions.
We were both new to the London maze where, like a thousand others, we’d arrived to chase dreams. Mariana had started a weekly cinema night to watch good films with good friends and Stu was keen to get out of the house!
That Wednesday, as Mariana waited for everyone else to join her, she applied the final touches to a script in which all spoken dialogue was gibberish. Stu spotted her writing and was fascinated by the concept. Our very first conversation was about language, communication and how body language can reveal more about people than words. Stu was used to distorting words in his own way with his art and so we found ourselves chatting away until the film started!
Our first real connection was about a month or so later after watching the film “There will be Blood” (a suiting name for a budding relationship). Mariana was struggling to get her point across in English but Stu, already developing his extra-sensorial ability to read her mind, came to her rescue. We teamed up for the very first time and it felt great!
As our friendship grew, we had tons of fun learning about each other’s quirks, culture, idiomatic expressions and even language. It might be hard to recall after all these years, but Mariana’s Portuguese accent at that point still had a slight American touch (influenced by movies) and a hint of Welsh (from her University days), but this was slowly replaced by a Scottish accent that, much like their love, grew stronger and stronger through the years. Sometimes the language did get in the way, but we were always quick to remember the lyrics of the immortal Led Zepellin song "communication breakdown".
But we digress… In the Spring of 2008, Mariana decided to play cupid and attempted to set Stu up with one of her closest friends.It turned out that she had made such a strong case for Stu’s amazing personality, stunning good looks (guess who wrote this bit), that it backfired… After many films, cocktails, barbecues and a night of sketching, it only took a few glasses of wine for Mariana to kiss Stu, but it took Stu a few of weeks of hard work to get her to be his girlfriend.
It was only a few months into the relationship when Mariana visited Scotland for the first time. Caron, Stu’s little sister and our proud Master of Ceremony, was getting married!
Despite the “cold weather”, Mariana was received by the Grants with such warmth that she immediately felt she was part of the clan.
Soon after, Stu started learning Portuguese and in 2009 we flew to the Algarve where he made a truce with the sand, took a very long bus to busy Lisbon and a train to greener Porto, where Mariana grew up. From the moment he set foot on the cobbled streets he felt at home. Super Bock, frango assado e um bom vinho tinto and Stu was converted.
The credit crunch marked the end of our first year together and although the crisis might have cost Mariana her job, it brought us even closer as we decided to move in together! This was the beginning of many dinner parties, game nights and some great lazy Sundays. Learning to live together had Stu go from turning down exquisitely cooked fish to have day old pasta, to preparing complex dishes with vegetables you never heard of. Together we learned a lot, but most importantly that indoor barbecues are a terrible idea, but hey, not all ideas can be brilliant!
Soon, we were so in love that we couldn’t remember what life was like before we got together! Over the years, as a couple, we played at being both tourists and locals in London, exploring Camden, Embankment and Covent Garden, North, South, East and West, visiting museums, pitch black restaurants, alternative cafes where we learnt to love soya flat whites, theatres, flying circus, interactive plays, and hidden bars with embalmed tigers; exploring the one city in Europe where everything is possible.
Our relationship has been plentiful but also full of challenges; we’ve helped each other progress in our careers, learning so much from each other that Mariana one day just found herself a Web Producer for One & Other, next thing she knows she’s working with designers and briefing web developers on re-brands, whilst Stu started coming home from work with full crafted concepts for short films. It must come as no surprise that even before making babies we found ourselves making a film together: C.T.R.L. and with this film, we travelled the world!
From Los Angeles, to New York, Toronto and Brazil... Italy, the Netherlands, and Morocco, we’ve explored many different realities... From the high rise restaurants in the big city to dreamy castles in Bruges and quiet nights in the desert.
In 2012 the Grants and Mariana’s Mother, Teresa met for the first time, and now a year doesn’t go by without us getting together for a loud family meal around a big table! Good food, good wine and most importantly, the best company: family.
And with family growing every year (Gary and Audrey formally becoming a couple, Daniel and John getting taller everyday and Rafaela having her baby boy) it’s about time we tie the knot, celebrate with all those we love and shout out loud how much we love each other!
In 2015, on a sunny Christmas morning in Porto, Mariana had never seen Stu so nervous. We were in our pyjamas and had just exchanged gifts and Christmas stockings as-per the Scottish tradition.
Stu took Mariana’s hand and led her to the balcony where he knelt down and asked his best friend in the whole world, to spend the rest of his life with him. Mariana knelt down beside him, at the same level, where we have always and will always be, together, and said yes.