Cupid’s wingman delivers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/10/2021 (1452 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lovers in a dangerous time or what?

To say dating in the midst of a worldwide pandemic has been challenging is putting it mildly. A quick Google search bears that out, turning up myriad articles along the lines of “COVID-friendly date night ideas you need to try,” “Date night ideas during the Coronavirus pandemic” and “Date ideas to get romantic during the Coronavirus.”

Around this time last fall Megan Parsons found herself in the same boat, wondering how to make a date with Keilan, her boyfriend of four years, extra special. Like many couples, they hadn’t been able to see much of one another owing to mandated, household restrictions, so she wanted a planned get-together ahead of her 24th birthday to be particularly memorable.

Prior to Keilan’s arrival, Parsons strung white fairy lights around a tree in the backyard, where they later nestled under blankets to watch a cheesy, ‘80s rom-com on a makeshift screen. Following the flick they stayed up late, chatting about this, that and another thing under the stars. A week or so later, Parsons mentioned to Keilan’s mom what a wonderful time they’d had; also, how dating during COVID wasn’t exactly a piece of cake.

That’s when it struck her; instead of couples spending hours scratching their heads trying to figure out something new and exciting to do — hey, there are only so many times you can go for a stroll in the park before it gets old, she says with a wink — why not share some of the ideas she had been tossing around, before settling on a backyard movie night?

“Initially I figured I would just start a blog, talking about things like a craft night or dance party for two,” Parsons says, seated outside at The Forks on a picture-perfect September afternoon. “Except by the time I got up to 20 themes or whatever you want to call them, I started thinking I should maybe start a business, instead.”

Enter Date Night Delivered, an enterprise that packages everything you need for a romantic rendezvous inside a branded, cardboard box, which, as the tag implies, is conveniently dropped off at your front door. Parsons, who graduated from the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business in 2019, launched her venture in November 2020, days before the government announced the province would be moving to the code-red level on the pandemic response system.

Yes and no, she replies, when asked whether that bit of news was good for business, given lovebirds suddenly had even fewer options available to them, in terms of outings. Sure, people began ordering date boxes immediately after she announced her “grand opening” on Instagram. Problem was, one of the activities in that first box was a scrapbooking exercise that called on couples to re-create their love life in picture form, and because a lot of the supplies she intended to include — glue sticks, glitter, even the scrapbooks themselves — were deemed to be non-essential items, it was all she could do to outfit her containers properly.

Parsons was eventually able to get everything ironed out, and to get close to 75 boxes signed, sealed and delivered. By mid-January, things were going along so swimmingly that she reached out to management at the Alt Hotel, to inquire whether they would be amenable to teaming up with her ahead of Cupid’s big day.

Sure thing, came the response, which meant couples that checked into the downtown inn on Feb. 14 were met in their room by a Date Night Delivered box containing a variety of local goodies, a QR code for a playlist chock full of love songs and — how much fun is this? — a bingo card Parsons developed that, for the rest of February, challenged people to cover squares by, to name a few, having a “no phones dinner,” “make your partner breakfast in bed” and “pick up your partner’s favourite snack at a grocery store.” (Err, that would be a box of Old Dutch Onion ‘n’ Garlic chips, please and thanks.)

With input from her older brother Grant, whom she sometimes turns to for a male point of view, Parsons unveils a differently themed box every month, the contents of which she announces on Instagram and through her website, www.datenightdelivered.ca. She accepts orders for the next two weeks, then, as soon as she knows how many to make, gets busy preparing each one individually. Where she used to handle the delivery end of things herself with the assistance of family and friends, sales have been so strong she recently signed up with online shopping platform Good Local.

Options include standard and deluxe date boxes, the latter arriving either with a prepared meal (such as a charcuterie board) or all the ingredients you need to make, for example, a heart-shaped pizza or tasty platter of nachos. A summer package dubbed Brews and Rendezvous didn’t only come with a selection of beer from Winnipeg’s One Great City brewery, it also carried a wooden flight board hand-carved by her uncle. (“At first I told him I was going to need 50 max but when order after order kept coming in, I called him back to say, ‘Uh, don’t put your tools away just yet’,” Parsons says with a chuckle.)

Brin Ledger and her boyfriend Jesse have ordered six of Parsons’ date-night boxes in the last 11 months. Hmm, that’s a tough question, she replies when asked which they enjoyed the most.

“The charcuterie one (Sippin’ on Summer) was fantastic but I swear, after the pizza date, both of us wanted to quit our jobs to stay home and make pizza full time,” she says.

Aside from food and beverages, Ledger feels the best part of each date box is the enclosed activities, as simple as a new Frisbee to toss around post-picnic, and as involved as a pre-arranged photo shoot with a professional photographer. Parsons-created games are an added bonus, calling on people to interact more than they would in, say, the seats of a crowded movie theatre.

“The speaking prompts are really great and have definitely helped our relationship grow,” Ledger says. “It’s hard to start those deeper conversations sometimes, or you don’t think to ask certain questions. But when it comes up in a game format, it’s kind of like you laugh a little bit and go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that about you’.”

Ledger also appreciates the fact Parsons goes out of her way to plant local products in each date box, be it a candle from Coal and Canary, or a craft cocktail set from Amsterdam Tea Room and Bar. (Because boxes also boast a — wink, wink — “after-dark” activity, they’re recommended for the 18-plus crowd.)

“During COVID we tried to support local as much as possible so it’s nice to know we’re not just supporting one local business, that being Megan’s, when we buy a box, but multiple local businesses.”

Parsons, who has shipped date boxes as far east as New Brunswick and as far west as Vancouver, says she’s filled orders for people embarking on their very first date, and for couples celebrating a 10th wedding anniversary. She says the best feedback she’s received to date, no pun intended, came from a woman who told her she couldn’t believe how much her boyfriend opened up, and how attentive he was during an interactive exercise called Love Languages.

“It’s a game couples can use to better understand how they give and like to receive love,” she explains. “There are five categories, one of which is gift giving, and after this person told her boyfriend how important the act of giving and receiving gifts was to her, he surprised her at the end of a tough week with some craft ice cream he picked up on the way home. She was like, ‘He’d never thought to do that before and I don’t know if he would have, if it hadn’t been for the date box’.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca