A Summer fling leads to a lifetime of happiness

So sang Danny Zuko and sweet, innocent Sandy Olsson about their romance in the movie “Grease.” A quarter century later, in a life-imitates-art moment, Chris and Ashley Chaney recreated the young love scenario on Sanibel Island.

She was 18, fresh out of high school, spending the Summer at her snowbird grandparents second home before heading back to her Canadian home to attend college. He was 22, a local guy and fellow FSU Seminole, bartending at a resort while considering his next step in life.

And then … well, let’s have them narrate.

“We fell in love … a Summer romance. We were inseparable that Summer as soon as we met,” Ashley said.

“Her dad actually introduced us, believe it or not,” Chris added.

“We would go shelling, we would go to the beach, we would go fishing. There’s not a lot of young people down there … so it was kind of just us,” she continued. “We had a great time. Those are good, good memories.”

Ashley would return north for university, but the couple communicated in what Ashley calls an “old school” kind of way. No smartphones, no texting, no unlimited long-distance minutes. “We kind of kept in touch, but it was a different time. We didn’t even have cellphones. I called from my dorm room. … It was very innocent and old school.”

For Ashley, college was a bust, so after one semester she returned to Sanibel — and the love story has continued for 20 years.

They would spend a few more years in Southwest Florida before relocating to Tallahassee so that Ashley could attend Florida State University. To put herself through school, Ashley worked in food service jobs, gaining experience and responsibility, ultimately leading to sales and event planning.

Today, the 38-year-old owns Hayward House Bistro, located downtown literally in the shadow of the Capitol in a corner spot (formerly Andrew’s Grill) that has been a dining hot spot for those involved in The Process for decades.

“Even before I opened the restaurant, my work in events was very heavily in the political space,” she explained. “My clients for my career, and now my customers — not all, but a lot of them — are political people. And Chris and I have been together for a really long time. As his career has risen and his connections are my connections, and our life is just together, I’ve been very fortunate to kind of be in it without actually being in it.”

A veteran of campaigns (Bill McCollum and Rick Scott) and state government (the Agency for Health Care Administration), Chris, 43, is now a partner at The Advocacy Partners, with a practice heavily focused on health care policy.

While he was always interested in politics, Chris said his true baptism by fire came in 2000, when all eyes were on Tallahassee during the 36-day Presidential Election recount. “I was living in Smith Hall on the west side of campus, and you’d get anywhere near downtown there’s all the television trucks. … Yeah, it was a wild time,” he recalled.

He would also get an up-close glimpse of The Process in Florida working as a bellman and valet at the Governor’s Inn.

As befits careers tied to the vagaries of politics, their 2011 wedding in Ashley’s Canadian hometown was scheduled after Scott was first elected and inaugurated as Governor. But poor planning led to their daughter being born on the first week of Session in January 2015.

“He had just started a new job at the firm. We had a new baby. We had a new house. You know, it’s just kind of like everything happened all at the same time,” Ashley said. “Our second, we planned better. She was born in October, and it was a Spring Session that year.”

With jobs that both rev up during Session, their personal life can get hectic. But with help from a nanny and friends, the Chaneys make it work. And a Thursday night date — usually dinner — is sacrosanct.

“We definitely have to be intentional to carve out the time,” she said. “That has been really great, because you are able to just focus on each other, drown out all the noise, and focus on sharing a meal that somebody else has prepared in a different restaurant that is not my own.” Their local favorites include il Lusso, Sage, Black Radish and Bella Bella.

Valentine’s Day plans? Fuhgeddaboudit.

“Valentine’s Day has never been a big thing for us because when we were getting together, we were both working in different restaurants, and you know that’s a big night in the restaurant business, right? I’ve only ever been in the restaurant business, so that’s just a workday,” Ashley said.

“There are a lot of similarities in what we do. There’s a very defined beginning and end. There’s a beginning and an end of a dinner service (or) an event, right? There’s a beginning of the Legislative Session and there’s an end to the Legislative Session. Very rarely in jobs do you get that.”

After holding a green card for a decade, Ashley became “a very proud American citizen” in January 2025.

There wasn’t a whole lot of culture clash between the international couple, although one early interaction could have ended in disaster.

“I almost wrecked my car once when we first got together,” Chris said, adding that Ashley’s speech “was very clearly Canadian.”

Ashley picks up the narrative, saying, “We were first dating and we were on Sanibel and Chris was driving.

Chris continued: “And going around a corner we were talking about your accent, and I said, ‘Say outhouse.’”

Ashley said the word in her best Canadian accent during our interview and it sounded something like “oothoose.”

“And he thought it was hilarious,” she said. “He was laughing so hard he almost ran us into a palm tree.”