Cara & Erika – A Story Of Soulmates
Soulmate (n.) A person with who you have an immediate connection the moment you meet – a connection so strong that you are drawn to them in a way you have never experienced before. As this connection develops over time, you experience a love so deep, strong, and complex that you begin to doubt that you have ever truly loved anyone prior.
We were destined for each other from the very beginning. Our lives were so intertwined apart from us, and we had no idea. We were connected to the same bundle of loved ones but for different reasons. We had met twice before. Actually, I was C’s first client with Northwestern Mutual and once at church, but aside from that, our story truly began the night of December 7th, 2018. We were pushed at each other that night to attend a Christmas Party together, just as friends.
That was the first night we spent together, that we stayed up all night laughing, crying, sharing secrets and stories, sharing fears and lofty dreams. We were open and honest and fully exposed, hiding nothing. For us both, it was the first time we had truly let somebody all the way into our hearts and felt seen entirely and not judged. Seen and still loved. God had brought us each our soulmate.
This was something that was not seen but felt. We felt it on such an intense level, all the way down into the core of who we were. It was like nothing we had ever experienced before. This was the first night we spent sleeping side by side, and we have not been apart since then. Although we felt it and did everything in our power to spend every waking and sleeping moment together, we refused to admit it because we did not understand it. We did not define what it was. We just allowed life to unfold and for this connection to bloom and to grow. Cara stayed with me and my four boys that night, and we spent the next few days completely connected at the hip.
My heart longed to be near her heart. I remember staying up all night and talking for hours and hoping that when I laid down next to her and put my hand out, she would place her hand on mine. We decided she should move in. We would save on finances, I would have some help with the boys, and life would be a little less lonely for us both living with a friend. Yes, a friend. That is what we thought this was at the time.
Shortly after us renting a house together, I remember thinking that these feelings were so much bigger than I initially believed them. I decided to share these feelings with C for her to tell me I was confused (….laugh it up). This was new and unchartered waters, and we were scared and confused but brave. Almost everyone in our lives was telling us we were confused, but I did not feel confused.
Everything shifted the day we met. My heart opened in a way that I cannot even fully explain. I never wanted to go back to my old way of surviving. The day I met her, I came alive. The next few years were wild. Loving each other was the easy part. Allowing us to be the foundation on which we stood. Finding our voice in a society full of boxes and judgments was hard and hurtful at times. We had to learn to let go of all of that. To stop worrying about the things we could not change. We started to really surrender down into the love and the life that we wanted, this life that we hungered for.
“I love sharing my life with a woman. How relentlessly we yearn to understand each other and how neither of us quits until we do. I love how we already understand each other so well because we are two women trying to free ourselves from the same cages. How our life together is one eternal conversation that we put on pause only to sleep. I love the touches that are suggestions, and I love the moment we lock eyes and decide. I love how one of us giggles and says: is this really our life?” -Glennon Doyle, UNTAMED.
Life had a mind of its own, and it wasn’t until we stopped defining things. Stopped defining us, our relationship, our love, who we were, and what our lives should look like, that it completely unfolded before us in a way so much more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. We did not find each other; we believe that God specifically brought us both into each other’s lives. To be, to live, and to love unconditionally, always.
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” John Green, A Fault in Our Stars.
We FINALLY got married on March 7th, 2021. But I have to keep reminding myself that our story is still only at the beginning.
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