Takeya and Shawn initially met in 2003, during their first semester at Oswego State. They shared mutual friends and would run into each other on occasion, mainly at parties. They had an interest in one another, but the timing wasn’t right to pursue anything. Shawn and Takeya reconnected via Facebook in April 2019. Takeya had recently returned from a trip and Shawn commented on her profile picture. This sparked conversation and then two spent hours catching up. It was like 15 years had not even passed. The two even realized they shared a love of Game of Thrones and set aside time weekly to discuss the final season! Although they’d been talking for a month, their first date was actually a wedding in Lake Placid. Takeya was given a plus one (shoutout to Meg and Justin) and with a little push from her girlfriends, she invited Shawn to be her date. Shawn told her no because he had a fishing day planned with his dad and brother, but called her the next day to say he had rearranged his plans. He drove 4 hours to be her date, even though he knew no one there besides her. The following month, the two spent an incredible weekend at Letchworth State Park and from then on, they just were.

Shawn planned a weekend trip up to Lake Placid to go see the leaves at their peak! Takeya was super excited because seeing the Adirondack Moutains in the Fall is an absolute dream. You have to understand, Shawn is always planning great trips so Takeya thought no differently of this weekend. The drive was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Shawn was up extremely early and wanted Takeya to get up and watch the sunrise with him and she decided sleep was much better! While getting ready for the day, Takeya put on Bruno Mars radio and “Marry You” randomly came on. They laughed about it and headed out for the day. After revisiting all the places from their first date and completing 2 hikes, the couple headed to Whiteface Mountain to go on a gondola ride. They almost didn’t make it because it closed at at a certain time and Takeya wanted to stop for a snack and a hard cider. As the two shared a quiet moment staring over the mountains, Shawn got down on one knee and asked Takeya to be his wife! She was so in shock that she told him to shut up nearly 30 times and even forgot to say yes! Fun fact - All of their proposal photos were taken by nice biker lady in leather who saw it all going down and took it upon herself to capture their special moment!!

We want to take an opportunity to recognize all of the people, for which this day would not be possible without. First and foremost, we would like to extend a very special thank you to our mothers and immediate family for their support and guidance throughout the planning process. We love you so much. To our phenomenal wedding party, thank you for keep us grounded and relaxed, and for always being there whenever we needed anything. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you for just being our friends and for loving and supporting us! To our wedding planner aka chaos coordinator, friends and family who lent their talents, the employees and all of our amazing vendors, we extend our utmost gratitude. And to our guests, we thank you for allowing us to share our day with you. A million memories and a global pandemic later, we are finally doing this. We hope you have a wonderful time and we love you all from the bottom of our hearts! ♡ Takeya and Shawn