Welcome to our wedding website! We're so excited to celebrate with you!

Here's the thing, neither Niko nor I are the sappy love poem, kissing in the rain type of people. We don’t have a typical rom-com "how we met" story where the guy sees the girl in a coffee shop and it’s love at first sight. However, let me explain why our story is one of my favorites. Our story begins with our paths crossing before we even knew each other's names. We both played recreation soccer against each other when we were about 11 years old. My father was the coach of my team, I was a forward (the one who scores the goals). One day we played against another team, where I saw the goalie wearing football gloves acting like he was way too into the game! I shot against him, he blocked me, and I remember someone from the sidelines saying "nice block Niko!". I thought to myself, "who is this kid? Why is he wearing football gloves? Why is his hair so long? Can he even see with those bangs? What kind of name is Niko?" I wanted to call him out for cheating but my dad told me to play nice... My team ended up winning, and when we all lined up to shake hands, he slapped my hand instead of shaking it because he didn't want to take off his illegal football gloves! Who does this kid think he is!? Fast forward to the summer of sophomore year in high school, the homecoming dance was coming up and I didn't have a date (unbelievable, I know!). While riding the bus to school one morning, my friend said her cousin had a friend who I should reach out to. We come from a small town where everyone seems to know everyone in some way or another. I thought 'why not' and found him on Facebook. Niko Hogan, with his long Justin Bieber hair and '79 firebird in the background of his profile picture. I added him and within minutes received a message in my inbox from him saying "do I know you?" to which I replied "I don't think so but you're cute and we should hang out" (forward I know, I guess I was feeling brave at the time!), and with that little Facebook exchange, started our love story.

Fast forward again, to the proposal. We moved to Florida after living together in Arizona for three years while we were attending college. Niko was interning at a big construction management company and I was beginning my nursing career. You’d think being with someone for years already, I would have seen it coming. But I didn't. It wasn't our anniversary, a birthday, Christmas or any other romantic holiday. It was just another Saturday in June. It started with Niko asking if I wanted to go out to dinner with his parents and brother who lived in Georgia at the time. Nothing crazy, we usually went out to dinner once a month to catch up. Niko told me we had a reservation lined up as it got crowded on the weekends. We pulled up to a little restaurant on the water. When we got inside, the hostess informed us there was a mix up with our reservations and our table wouldn’t be ready for a while. Me, probably just being hangry at the time, got annoyed. The hostess apologized and said we can order some cocktails on the back deck while we’re waiting for our table to be ready. Ugh, fine, we had a reservation but whatever.

So we go wait on the back deck. We’re enjoying the view of the river, there’s even a beautiful sunset across the way. The deck has some Adirondack chairs when you first get on, closer to the restaurant, and a completely open waterfront view on the other side. At this point, I’m starting to get super hungry and am still mad at the hostess for messing up our reservation. I wasn’t paying attention or caring (I’m starving!) about the people sitting in the chairs only 10 feet away from me. I was just staring at the water with Niko, trying to not let steam come out of my ears. I start to realize Niko’s family moving to the other side of the deck with their phones all pointed at me. I then hear a voice from the chairs (that I'm still not looking or paying attention to) say "I’ll have a Malibu Bay Breeze, please". Side bar, if there’s one thing you should know about my mom, it’s that literally the only alcoholic drink in the world that she will drink is a Malibu Bay Breeze. She repeated the order few times, louder each time, before it clicked in my brain and I turned around to look at the chairs. The first words out of my mouth were "holy shit!" (sorry mom). I immediately see that sitting in those chairs are my mom, dad, and both sisters who flew down from NJ to see us. I hadn’t seen them in 6+ months! I immediately rushed to hug them all and was instantly spun back around to see Niko on one knee holding a ring in his hand. He had coordinated the entire family reunion and restaurant “error” all without me knowing anything. I said yes of course, and the waiters brought out glasses of champagne. (when going inside to eat, I had to apologize to the hostess for being mean since she was in on it too).

As I said in the beginning, I’m not great at writing ooy-gooy love stories. However I would just like to say, if you believe in soul mates like I do, you can see how many times our paths crossed without us even noticing at first. I believe that when the universe throws a chance at you, you should take it. When life gives you an option to grow, do it. And when life tells you to reach out to someone on Facebook by a friend on the school bus, go for it. Niko and I have been through a ton of experiences that helped us grow into the people we are today. We have taken chances, moved across the country (and back!), experienced life, growth and loss together. I believe we are soul mates, and I wouldn't want to walk through life any other way. Thank you for being a part of our lives and celebrating our wedding day together! See you soon! Love, Niko and Chey.