At Last!

Neither of us remember the exact moment we first met since we were so young. Our best guess is somewhere around 2005, when Jasmine began dance lessons where the Thornburg children also attended. After the dance studio closed a few years later, we continued our childhood friendship at a community theatre. Finally around age 15, we both realized that we wanted to be more than friends. On February 19, 2015, Samuel officially asked Jasmine to be his girlfriend, and the rest is history.

Jasmine picked up Samuel from the airport late on December 21, 2018 to begin Samuel's winter break from MOS school in Virginia. Samuel insisted on driving home, which seemed odd, but Jasmine thought "Maybe he missed driving since he didn't have a car out in Virginia?". After a quick In-N-Out stop and an almost two hour drive back from LAX, Samuel got off an exit early and drove by the beach. Again, Jasmine dismissed this as Samuel being homesick. Around 2AM on December 22, 2018, Samuel parked in front of the gazebo by Jasmine's house. That's when Jasmine started to grasp what was going on. They approached the gazebo and found candles, rose petals and a mistletoe. Samuel gave his speech, got down on one knee, and presented the ring to Jasmine. She said yes, of course, and out of the bushes popped out Samuel's sister, Josie, and their friend Jillian. Jasmine's parents also appeared from behind a bench. The four had set everything up for Samuel and managed to record video and take pictures.

About a month before our wedding, California went into lockdown to minimize the spread of COVID-19. We went from planning a 200 person wedding to an at-home wedding with just our immediate family. Getting married was much more important to us than having a wedding, so we were going to do anything possible to become husband and wife on our original wedding date. This included driving 9 hours round trip to the nearest county that was providing marriage licenses. Jasmine's best friend and Maid of Honor, Kassidy, got ordained online and wrote a beautiful ceremony script. Using the decorations that Jasmine had already started collecting, the Anderson family's living room and deck turned into the perfect wedding venue.