Hello friends and family! NEWEST UPDATE: Our reception will remain indoors. There is plenty of room to social distance ourselves and our guests. If you do not want to be inside there is okentt of room outside to distance. We are will be requiring masks indoors still when guests are being served their food and using the restrooms. We will have masks available if you forget yours. Children under 5 do not need to wear a mask. Please let us know if you have a medical condition where you cannot wear a mask. If you do not agree with our request we will need to ask you to leave our celebration. And we dont want to do that! PREV UPDATE: As far as catering goes - we are still offering a buffet style meal. Below is a summary of the new guidelines our catering company Distinctive Catering (DC) has sent us on what they are doing to keep guests and our food safe. If any of you have questions or concerns for us as far as practicing safety guidelines for our wedding please reach out :) DC will wear proper PPE while serving food including masks and gloves. Hand sanitizer stations will be set up at the front of the buffet and all guests will be required to disinfect their hands before touching the buffet line. If an employee notices a contamination occurs - all utensils will be replaced and guests will be required to disinfect again. Social distancing measures will be practiced by the staff as well as when dismissing people from their tables. The staff will also be screened upon arriving to the event and sent home if they have any symptoms will be sent home immediately. That's all we have to update you on for now. We encourage everyone to stay positive during this time! Sending you all our love, Samantha & Ian

A lot of you already know how we met, but for those who do not, here is the beginning of us! Ian and I met on an app called Tinder. Ian was looking to expand his friend group in Grand Rapids since he had just moved from the East side of the state. And as for myself, I was on the app looking for some conversation and possibly a fun date. Ian initiated conversation with me after we matched...little did we know we were a fantastic match at the time! We talked about volunteering, choir, music, anime...all mutual interests we shared. It got to the point where Ian's connection at home was spotty so he asked for my phone number instead of just chatting on the app itself. I was apprehensive at first since we had only been communicating a short while, and the whole Catfishing thing. I ended up giving him my phone number and we would talk on the phone for hours at a time about anything and everything, it was so easy with Ian. I'm glad I decided to give him my phone number because shortly after that we decided to meet in person. I had never met someone in person that I chatted with online before. I remember it was a cold day with snow on the ground when it should've been springtime. We decided to meet in Millennium Park to take a walk. Ian felt intimidated upon meeting me the first time because I was taller than him and strikingly beautiful. I thought he was a little awkward but had a very sweet smile and he could make me laugh. We walked and talked for hours until it started to get too dark and we almost couldn't find our way back to our cars! I remember coming back home when it was pitch black and my parents asking how it went, and I immediately started babbling on and on. About a month later we started to date and we kept enjoying each other's company. We've had some big milestones in our 5 years together; we moved in together in 2017, moved again in 2018, we had our beautiful boy Malcolm in 2019 and this year we make our 'match' turn into forever.

Our proposal wasn't what I would call 'magical' but it was still perfect for us. Ian and I discussed getting married quite a bit but wanted to wait until the time was right. We wanted to be in a good spot financially before starting our lives together (in a perfect world right)? I always knew I didn't want a traditional stone in my engagement ring or wedding ring so I told Ian that...and he said, "Show me what you want!" Every girl's dream right!!! So when I found THEE ring I showed him and he said, "Okay...but you still don't know when it's coming! :P" But Ian told me later when he tried ordering the ring, they were out of stock and weren't sure when that particular ring would come in. So Ian told me to pick yet.another.ring! Because, we had decided to save money by purchasing one ring for me instead of the traditional engagment band and wedding ring. I went with my very very close second choice. Now maybe a month later we were running late somewhere. Or we had a packed schedule that day...we were in the car rushing someplace and I was buckling in the drivers seat. Ian just non-chalantly turns to me and says, "oh yeah, I should've done this a long time ago..." and just hands me the ring box. I immediately got so excited and expected the second choice ring....BUT IT WAS THE OG RING :DDDDD Ian went and ordered the second ring but the following day the store called him and said the first ring was back in stock. So my love went and bought that ring too! So I've been wearing that second ring, (pictured in the photos section) as my engagement band and have my wedding ring safely waiting for our big day.