We Still Do 🤍

What a year it has been... We would never have guessed that something like a global pandemic would happen let alone interupt one of the most important days of our lives 6 months later. While we didn’t let it stop us from getting married on our original date that meant so much to us, we knew that our celebration wasn’t complete as we were missing a lot of important people. Thankfully our venue allowed us to host our small ceremony there knowing we wanted to be back eventually for our big celebration. We are so grateful to have the chance to do it again on our 1 year anniversary in front of all those that have helped shape us over the years. Thank you for your understanding not only last year but also this year as we do something untraditional. Vow renewal, wedding re-do, big celebratoon - whatever you want to call it, we can’t wait to celebrate with you all! All our love, Sam and Blake

We were Junior’s in high school attending different schools and had met through a mutual friend. We connected on Facebook, as that was how most kids our age interacted back then. Our first date was at Denny's (so romantic) and a movie after. I remember being so excited because he was the first guy I dated who had a car and could drive (lol). We were young and on cloud 9 without a care in the world, until the pressures of Senior year kicked in and we decided to go our separate ways. We dated around for a while, but eventually found our way back to each other in college and have been inseparable for the past 7 years. We had to grow individually first to be able to grow together; everything happens for a reason. Back in high school Blake use to whisper in my ear "forever and always" whenever we said goodbye, which is where our wedding hashtag-pun derived from.

We had always wanted to travel the world and decided to book a two week trip traveling around Italy and Greece. A week into our trip our itinerary took us to Santorini, Greece which was one of the cities I was most excited to see. Our tour group made a stop at a beautiful winery overlooking the Kritiko Pelagos (Cretan Sea). As we were tasting and discovering our favorites, the waiter topped me off with the rest of the bottle when he jokingly said, "Oh you finished the bottle, you know what that means in Greece?! Marriage is to come!" We all started laughing around the table, not realizing that Blake was absolutely mortified internally thinking this stranger might have just blown his cover. We all got up to take pictures of the scenic coast and Blake suggested that him and I go down this path that wrapped around the side of the cliff. I was slightly nervous that I couldn't see the end of the pathway and equally confused as to why my boyfriend, who isn't that type of romantic, would want to go down this secret path to take pictures. I'm a little stubborn... We went down to the end of the path which lead to a little private deck when Blake asked me to hold his wine glass...and his jacket...and was fidgeting around his bag... I started to lose my patience holding everything when all of a sudden he was down on one knee and my heart stopped and began to race all at the same time. He pulled out a little golden box and as he opened it said "I'm not sure if you remember this" as I saw my late grandmother's ring sitting in it. I burst into tears and hardly heard anything else he said but it didn't matter because the love of my life was asking me to marry him. Of course I said yes - who could say no to a proposal at a cliff-side winery in Greece?! Once back from our trip and thinking of possible wedding dates, I started thinking of the cheesiest way to connect to a date. Blake proposed on 5/20/19 and we had been dating for 1,920 days hence, September 19, 2020.