We can't wait to celebrate with you (finally!)

Our mutual friend, Eric, is the director of a local after school program. Each month, the middle school students were invited to "Fun Night" at the local YMCA. On June 1, 2013, we both agreed to volunteer as chaperones for Fun Night. We spent the evening chatting with one another while making sure students didn't run down the halls or chew gum on the basketball courts. We bonded over our love of cats.

While on vacation in Costa Rica, we visited Manuel Antonio National Park, known for it's beaches and sneaky Capuchin monkeys who will trick you to steal your food. We had hiked to the beach and spent time soaking up the sun and taking photos of the monkeys lounging in the trees nearby. As we sat on a rock, away from the crowd of the beach, Sonja snuck a bag of fruit snacks from the James' backpack and tried to eat them without being noticed by the monkeys. A monkey locked eyes with her, recognizing she was eating. Sonja warned James that they should get back to the trail, because the monkey had definitely noticed their food. James asked to wait a minute and handed Sonja a piece of paper folded into a heart over her shoulder. As Sonja unfolded the heart, it revealed a picture of her engagement ring and James asked her to marry him. In the five seconds it took Sonja to say "of course!" and turn around to kiss James, the monkeys made their move. We heard rustling behind us, and the same monkey that watched Sonja eat her fruit snack was halfway inside James' backpack. We were about a foot away, but could not easily grab the backpack away. The monkey pulled out an unopened, shareable-sized, bag of hazelnut M&M candy, tucked it under his little arm, and ran away up the rock. He then stopped, just far enough out of reach, to look back at us in triumph before carrying his treasure off to his friends. As we looked around, we were now surrounded by the entire tribe of Capuchin monkeys in the trees over our heads. It all happened so quickly, all we could do was laugh. Our special moment was cut short by the monkeys we knew very well were going to try to outsmart us.

COVID-19 threw our original wedding plans for a loop, as you know. We had planned to postpone our wedding for a year, and get married in June 2021. Lowes Home Improvement had other plans! They reached out to us on social media after Sonja shared a photograph of the postponement cards we sent to everyone. They asked if we wanted to be one of the featured couples in their backyard wedding promotion, and we agreed. We re-set our wedding date for June 20, 2020, and spent four weeks tuning our backyard into the perfect wedding location. We exchanged vows under the trees with our immediate family present, ate dinner at two wooden tables, built by James, and danced on our patio under party lights and hanging flowers. It was not the wedding we imagined, but it was just the wedding we needed. We're so sorry everyone couldn't be there to see it, but we can't wait to celebrate with you at a long-overdue reception in 2022.