The first thing he noticed was her bold smile, her big laugh. She was impressed by his grace, and by the mindfulness of his approach.
Khalia Davis and Demetrius Philp met on a dating app, but they both wanted to get off the app as quickly as possible and start talking: first on the phone, then on FaceTime, and finally in real life. “It was not just ‘What’s up?’ ” Khalia said with a laugh. “He wanted to really get to know me, which was so lovely.”
Alas, it was July 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and face-to-face interactions were complicated.
Khalia was a film, television, and theater professional who had recently moved from New York back to her origins in the Bay Area: During the summer of 2020 she was creating virtual options for children’s theater at a time when live theater had come to a halt. Demetrius was a Bay Area-based artist and photographer specializing in portrait, lifestyle, sports, and advertising photography.
They were nevertheless quite eager to meet “in real life,” and no pandemic was a match for love’s innovative spark. Among the couple’s creative options for outdoor dates were vigorous hikes through the outlying mountains and majestic walks among the redwood giants.
But their first date was at San Francisco’s spectacular Botanical Gardens, where they wandered for hours and conversed through masks. Not even face coverings could discourage an initial spark of interest.
“There was something radiant about her,” said Demetrius, a graduate of the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography who crafts exquisite portraits of people from around the world. “It all clicked — walking around that garden, being able to share that side of myself.”
They immediately found that their mutual passion for the arts formed a bond. “Being able to connect on that level, as artists, was a big plus,” Demetrius said. “But she also has this fire in her. I love an outspoken woman, a woman who can say what’s on her mind. I hit gold when I met her.”
Khalia remembers Demetrius initially as being “quiet in nature, introspective, and reflective. … This was one of those moments when the pandemic, in some ways, offered us gifts, and one of the gifts was being able to take things really slowly — take time to get to know each other, to get into real conversations.”
Just walking through a grocery store to buy sandwiches for their visit to the Botanical Gardens “immediately felt normal and comfortable,” Khalia said. “Something mundane that couples have to do, grocery shopping, seemed natural because I felt like I knew him already.”
The ensuing years were stop-and-start, as both photography and theater went through crisis and recovery. Demetrius weathered a lull in photographic assignments, made worse by a writer’s strike in film and television, but he was starting to work again. Khalia was named artistic director of Bay Area Children’s Theatre, where she created a kids play about racism, an online collaboration with 40 producer partners. She also worked in major stage productions such as The Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre.
Finally in 2023 Demetrius began to feel it was the right time to pop the question. He wanted to do it the right way, to make it into a memorable event. So he invited all of Khalia’s family and close friends for a sort of reunion — one whose purpose was known to everyone but her.
Since Khalia held a major post in the theater world, Demetrius studied her calendar to determine when there might be a lull in her schedule. “She was in a very important role as a Black woman,” Demetrius said, “and being a Jamaican growing up with a Jamaican single mother, the biggest thing my mother taught me was that if you’re going to be with a woman … be attentive to her, learn what she likes and needs.”
At it turned out, so many of Khalia’s friends were present at the party that they ended up drawing attention away from the main purpose of the event. “He had blown up balloons that said, “Will You Marry Me?” but I didn’t see any of that,” Khalia said. “I saw my friends and family standing in front of that sign and was excited about seeing them.”
Demetrius did finally get her attention and went on bended knee. Again Khalia was impressed at her new fiancé’s attentiveness to detail, his concern for her feelings and her happiness.
“This man knew what was most important to me — my village, my community, the family and friends who raised me. … I was really touched by how much he had truly paid attention, during our time together, to what was important to me.”
And because this engagement announcement had included primarily Khalia’s family and friends, the couple decided that the wedding would be with Demetrius’ family in Jamaica. “I said, let’s switch now,” Khalia said, “and figure out how we can make it possible for all of your family to be able to celebrate this union. We felt like it was a lovely balance.”
Why was the institution of marriage important to them? “I respect those who make the choice not to marry, because people find companionship in a variety of ways,” Khalia said. “As believers we are taught that God created people to be together, and I think it’s really beautiful that you’re saying, in front of the Lord and all your friends and family, ‘I am committing everything to this person.’ ”
Demetrius wanted the wedding to be a family event, and he had two primary goals. “One, to get married so my mom can see that day. And two, to be able to have all my brothers in one room, because it had been 20-odd years since we had all been together.”
The destination wedding was held in November 2024 at an elegant hotel resort at Montego Bay, on Jamaica’s resplendent North Coast.
The Jamaican autumn can bring rain, and at first it looked like the weather might cast a pall. “The day of the wedding, there was still some rain and drizzle,” Khalia said. Eventually “the clouds parted and we legitimately had a rainbow.” The grand finale of the ceremony was greeted by a painterly Caribbean sunset.
As they turned toward the beach, they saw that their 60 or so wedding guests had been supplemented by scores of hotel guests and staff, gathering good-naturedly to congratulate the couple.
From there it was back to Kansas City, where Khalia had recently been named producing artistic director of the Coterie Theatre — and where they continue to forge ahead with a business they established in 2021, Smooth September, dedicated to capturing flavors of Jamaica in hand-crafted herbal teas and natural juices. (See smoothseptember.com.)
“He had lived a life, and I had lived a life,” Khalia said. “We had lived experiences and had grown from them. There was a lot that we both believed in — how we wanted to live our lives, how we wanted to give back to others, to serve our communities with our art.”
In their unique ways, Khalia and Demetrius complement each other perfectly. “Her strengths are in my weaknesses and my strengths are in her weaknesses,” Demetrius said, “and the two together create something special.”
They have found a powerful bond through their respective art forms. “We each deal in a medium that is specifically about relationships,” Khalia said. “We are both storytellers: We love to tell other people’s stories, to connect with people in a deeper way and be able to showcase their stories authentically.”
— By Paul Horsley
