Coquitlam’s Holly Bruce-Steiner looked at her phone Friday morning and there was a text declaring “Larry loves you!” It was from Montreal. “What?” But then another, and another and many, many more flowed to her phone. She asked her husband, Larry Steiner, what was up? After all, it was their 30th anniversary.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said.
But they kept coming.
“Oh, Larry, this is getting weird,” she said to him. Finally he relented and told her to go out to her car. On her windshield was one of the many flyers Steiner had posted all over Coquitlam leading up to their anniversary.
The flyer asked everyone to send a text to his wife on their 30th anniversary saying “Larry loves you.”
“Altogether my wife Holly has put up with me for 40 years! (How she has done that is still a mystery!)” said the flyer. “It would be fantastic if you, as a complete stranger, would text Holly on Friday, Aug. 2 … and say Larry loves you.”
“My husband’s a little bit of a prankster, and he likes surprising people, he always has. I thought it was very romantic,” said Bruce-Steiner.
Steiner fessed up to being called “a prankster.” One time he took her to McDonald’s for their anniversary, which didn’t impress her initially, until after they finished eating and he pulled out a diamond necklace with an H in it.
“I like to do things in unconventional ways. The challenge is in the surprising. She’s got that bright-eyed face when I surprise her,” said Steiner.
He posted the flyer all over their neighbourhood, a parking lot, their chiropractor’s office, and two bank branches they go to. “Oh, we love Holly,” exclaimed one bank employee to Steiner.
“She’s kind and honest, and just the type of person that everyone gravitates to, and they do,” said Steiner. “Basically to know Holly is to like her. Period. Everybody says that about their better half, but I’ve known her for 40 years and everybody likes her and she’s super likeable.”
At the bottom of his flyer, Steiner added a note saying he’s not on social media so if someone would take a picture of it “and pass it around, that could really get the ball rolling!”
That ball rolled around the world. It rolled so far Steiner’s surprise had its own surprise. She received more than 3,000 texts.
“Both of us have just been overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and people taking the time to say happy anniversary or congratulations,” said Bruce-Steiner.
The texts came from across Canada and the United States. They got texts from Dubai, Mexico and Australia. There were so many texts plugging up her phone that some who couldn’t get their message through actually called her, including one call from Kyoto, Japan. Some dug up her website for her jewelry making business Lighten Up! Jewels and emailed her through it.
“It looked like it was overheating,” said Bruce-Steiner of her phone. “It was just mind boggling that people just want more love stories. Every relationship has its challenges, but we need to share more good stuff and love.”
Steiner said he expected his wife would get 40 texts at the most. While some husbands might have worried such a move might backfire he knew he’d get “an A for effort even if it fell flat on its face.” Far from it. “She can be quite an emotional person. To get such a reaction coming from strangers, it hit her really hard in a great way,” said Steiner. “This has been beyond my wildest imaginations.”
Bruce-Steiner thought she was the one who had pulled off the big surprise. She had planned a special rendezvous for the two at Rocky Point Park for the day of their anniversary. But Friday’s forecast wasn’t great. So she laid out a dry-cleaned suit for Steiner and told him to show up at the waterfront Thursday evening instead. When he got there she was wearing the wedding dress she wore on Aug. 2, 1989 when they eloped and got married on a beach at Marina del Rey, Calif.
“It looks just as good today as it did 30 years ago,” said Steiner. “That was very impressive. I always liked her wedding dress.
As it turns out, the weather might have done them a favour.
“We might not have got down to the water with all the messages coming through,” chuckled Bruce-Steiner. “At least I got to do it first. He was very surprised too.”.
The big question is can he top it?
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do for our 40th. I don’t think I have a better idea,” said Steiner.
Neither does his wife. “Not even going to try. How can that be topped?” said Bruce-Steiner. “Really 10 years from now, if our love is richer than that, it’s a gift.”
