Meeting & Falling in Love

Samantha and Chris first met in 2006 while playing Xbox Live games. Samantha was 16 at the time and, as she did quite often with her best friend, would form friendships over the online gaming platform.

I eventually became friends with a good-looking gamer over Uno (yes, the card game). The cute gamer’s friend then entered the scene, who ended up wooing myself with his sultry voice  over mic chat. Soon we were talking to each other every day. Even though he was miles away in North Dakota, Chris became one of my best friends. We would talk for hours and our conversations spanned over every intimate detail of our lives. Chris eventually bit the bullet and traveled to Chicago to finally meet me. When he arrived, however, I wasn’t there! I never showed up to meet him because I was insecure, scared, and not ready to have such a major change in my life. Chris went to my parents house in hopes that I’d be there, but I wasn’t. I actually escaped to a friend’s house in fear, knowing that Chris had my home address and would look for me there first. Defeated, he left a book of poetry with my mom’s boyfriend at the time and went back to North Dakota. We didn’t speak for a year after this incident and the book of poetry would lay, forgotten and unread, underneath my bed.

After the year of silence passed, I came across the book and finally read its contents. Feeling the undeniable love he felt for me through his words, I immediately knew that I had made the biggest mistake in my life by running away from him—I not only lost my best friend, but the man I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I sent Chris a MySpace message apologizing to him and hoping there could still be a friendship between us. Chris replied that he didn’t want to be friends…instead, he loved me and never stopped loving me. He wanted nothing but to try and figure out this thing between us.

Love will always find a way.

In 2009, we decided to try meeting again and this time, I didn’t run. I instantly recognized Chris as he walked towards me at O’Hare. It was a surreal experience to finally see each other in person for the first time, after all of these years of talking. I was so enamored to see Chris… I never stopped staring at him and smiling—he still jokes about it this to this day. Things moved pretty fast from there, we lived together for a year in Colorado, then returned to Chicago. We blossomed those following years, creating a deeper bond with not only ourselves but all of the friends and family that watched us grow together. We continuously made things better for each other, always having positive outlooks amid any situation.

The Quirkiest Things

I love her sense of humor, her kind heart, her patience, talking about deep things such as philosophy and religion as well as her artistic abilities; she is a wonderful painter and musician. She is also an outstanding mother to our daughter and that is a quality I admire.

I love that Chris and I are not afraid to be ourselves in front of each other. I love that we make each other laugh hysterically at least once a day. I love that Chris will come up to me and we will just stop what we are doing and grab me to dance with him with or without music. I love that we try to teach and show each other things we are passionate about because we love each other so much that we want each other to love what we love. I love so much that we can work together the hardest we will ever work—to teach and give so much love to our baby girl, Luna. He truly is my best friend.

The Proposal

In 2014, the first heavy snowfall of the season prompted us to bundle up and play in it (as we did every year). We walked hand in hand around the town, enjoying the silence when suddenly Chris stopped and turned towards me. He got down on one knee and proposed. It was such a dream come true on a beautiful snowy evening, there were no other words except, “YES!”

The Wedding Day

My favorite part of the wedding was finally getting to read the vows I had written Chris almost 5 years before the wedding. I love that I get to have the BEST last name ever (Sweet). I loved having our family dance with our baby girl, Luna. I loved all of our closest family and friends there to celebrate with us. I really loved EVERYTHING about that perfect day, even dancing to Metallica (requested by Chris) with all of our friends.. WHO PLAYS METALLICA AT THEIR WEDDING?… The Sweet family does!

The Wedding Venue

When we walked into The Haight and saw the beautiful drapery, the seats and everything set up, Chris turned to me and said, “Yep! This is the place!”—taking the words right out of my mouth. The bridal suite wasn’t there when we had first seen it and it turned out to be EVERYTHING! We are so happy to have chosen The Haight. All of our friends and family said they LOVED our wedding location. The farm tables are gorgeous and all of the decorations and help from the staff made everything a dream come true! Best decision ever!

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The Marriage

I love my new name. It took a while to get used to husband and wife, but we did try to go out of our way to say it for the first couple of months. Ha! Our relationship has for the most part stayed the same considering we had been living with each other for years before we got married. There is less anxiety now that the wedding planning is over with and now that people are treating us as husband and wife. I feel more secure and it has made me want to be better. The more we are together, the better we understand each other, and the more in love we are!

The Dress & Tux

I got my dress from David’s Bridal and it was designed by Oleg Cassini. The tux was a custom suit from Men’s Warehouse.

The Advice

Take it all in! Patience when planning and with each other during planning. Don’t work towards the expectations of others and invest in your marriage! WRITE YOUR OWN VOWS!! It was my favorite part of our wedding!

The Shoutouts

Nicole at The Haight was honestly SO AMAZING! She gave me the best ideas and helped me set everything up perfectly. Cuisine America brought us food on our day and let us borrow so many things from them! We loved that they are family-owned and how sweet and beautiful they were to us! We loved the entire experience working with them! Town and Country Gardens were so talented and did such beautiful work—I’m still obsessed with my flowers! Esther with Oh So Lovely Photography is SO talented and sweet…honestly one of the nicest people ever. We loved working with her!

Backthird Entertainment played everything and anything we asked for. They were AMAZING! We loved that The Sugar Path added our little cookie from Kingdom Hearts and Nina was so sweet and attentive! We loved our cake tasting and all of our choices! I can’t say enough about Craft Donuts! We LOVE their donuts so much and donuts are Chris’ favorite food! Concept One Photography did a great job on the photo-booth and I’m so grateful to my really good friend, Loni Lovely for my hair and makeup!

The Vendors

Photographer: Oh So Lovely Photography| Photo-booth: Concept One Photography

Florals: Town & Country Gardens | Catering: Cuisine America

Cake & Sweets: The Sugar Path & Craft Donuts | DJ: Backthird Entertainment

Hair/Makeup: Loni Westman | Alcohol: Drinks on Me Catering