Chris Smith: Things picked up for this pair after she dissed him like a bruised pear at Safeway

Did I see you Saturday at Santa Rosa High and Cornell alum Pyrs Carvolth's fairy-tale seaside wedding in Newport, Rhode Island?

No, wait, I wasn't there. I read about it in the New York Times.

The delightful Times piece by wedding reporter Vincent Mallozzi focused less on Pyrs' exchange of vows with the former Greta Buerman than on the couple's first conversation at the Marina Safeway in San Francisco, and on a subsequent incident outside a gas station mini mart.

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LET'S START with a few introductions. Pyrs (sounds the same as Pierce) is the son of former Santa Rosa school board member Noreen Carvolth and Dr. Rick Carvolth, chief physician executive of Dignity Health in Sacramento.

The highly accomplished and inventive Carvolth family was well known even before the stealing of Pyrs' heart at the Marina Safeway, a legendary spot for mate-shopping, made the Times.

The Carvolths are renowned for hanging a gorgeously decorated and illuminated upside-down Christmas tree from the ceiling near the front door of their McDonald Avenue home.

And, for a time, Pyrs' brothers, Trent and Rhys, whipped up cream puffs to die for at a bakery they founded in San Francisco.

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WHILE LIVING AND WORKING in San Francisco three years ago, Pyrs, 29, and brother Rhys made an afternoon run to the Safeway near Fort Mason.

Pyrs noticed Greta Buerman. Instantly, the 2007 Santa Rosa High grad remembered admiring her from afar when she was a freshman at Cornell in 2011 and he was a senior. They never spoke at the college.

Pyrs told me by phone Monday, “I don't think Greta really knew who I was.”

But he knew who she was at Cornell, and there at the Marina Safeway in 2015 he was seriously smitten. He had no idea then she had been in San Francisco only a short time, too.

Pyrs stepped in behind Greta at a checkstand and attempted to ignite a conversation. Greta later told Times reporter Mallozzi:

“He told me that he had also gone to Cornell. Yet I'm standing there thinking: What is this deadbeat doing at a supermarket on a weekday afternoon? Doesn't he have a job?”

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SO PYRS STRUCK OUT. But he didn't give up. Days later, he went onto Facebook and found a woman he knew is a friend of Greta.

He asked the woman for Greta's phone number. She gave it to him.

About a week later, Pyrs sent Greta a text asking if she would go out with him. When that text hit Greta's phone, she didn't have it with her.

She had stopped at a gas station and run into the store to buy something. And who was in her car with her phone? The friend Pyrs had contacted.

That woman read the text and, pretending to be Greta, replied that she'd love to meet Pyrs for dinner.

When Greta returned to her car, her friend informed her she had a dinner date with the fellow from the Safeway checkstand.

Mallozzi wrote in the Times:

“I thought it was hilarious,” Ms. Buerman said. “My friend was like: ‘Look, you're in a new city and you don't really know that many people, so why not meet this guy? He's very cute and, yes, he does have a job.”

So Greta went and met Pyrs at Belga on Union Street. And they clicked. They've been together every day since, and on Monday were off for a short honeymoon in Bermuda.

Then it will be back to work in New York. Greta, 25, is in marketing with Bleacher Report and Pyrs is an account director at TuneIn, a San Francisco-based audio streaming service.

The day will surely come, and we'll hope to be there, when they return to pay homage to the Marina Safeway.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.