You can read all about Chantal and Sam’s wedding story here too.
Words by Sam
I first knew of Chantal when I was thirteen, and she was sixteen. She was always that girl that I had my eye on. At the time I thought, “wow, she’s so cool in her Dickies pants and skater tee’s riding her skateboard with all of the boys,” and she probably thought, “that little girl is a weirdo” I don’t think either of us ever dreamt of referring to each other as “my wife” one day.
Once high school was over, it was time for me to go to college. It just so happens that I ended up at the same one as Chantal. We reconnected, but this time it was different. There was an undeniable connection and comfort between the two of us. I couldn’t help but to always want to be around her.
Our hours together turned into days that turned into months full of passion, adventure, and the most laughs. We fell so hard for each other, and we didn’t even see it coming. The more time we spent together, the less we focused on our studies. So we decided we would take a year off of school and move from our tiny small town to the Rocky Mountains to figure this all out. Neither of us knew what we were doing. All we knew was that we were doing it together. Our relationship grew strong enough that we felt it was time to come out to our closest friends and family, and we were so lucky to have the outpouring of love and support from every one of them.
We moved home and started our own little family. We became fur mamas! Kevin is our cat, and he is our absolute world. How will we ever love anything more?
Our engagement turned out to be one of our best stories yet. We were flying to Los Angeles for an adventure with our friends. I thought what better time to ask her to be my wife then cruising on our longboards at 5 am in front of a California sunrise. As the surfers took to the ocean and the sun to the sky, I secretly wrote the words “will you marry me” in the sand. A few minutes later, when she finally saw it her reaction was not what I thought it would be, “who wrote that!? Someone got engaged here!” I spent the next three minutes tripping over my own words to muster up the courage to tell her I wrote it. And I asked her to spend the rest of her life with me.
In July, we will be getting married in a greenhouse fifteen minutes from our hometown to celebrate with our love and commitment with friends and family.
It feels as though we’ve been through it all together. The happiest moments, the saddest, the most exciting, and the most frustrating, but I couldn’t picture going through any of those things without her by my side.
Photography by Bows & Lavender
