With that, we’re pretty much caught up on what has been happening here lately. I know, I know, not much of a recap.. But really, it’s winter and things are just moving along without anything major happening. We’re being more active in our house hunt and it is our hope that we’ll be able to purchase a home before our apartment lease is up in July! More to come on that as things progress! Until then, however, I thought I would take some time to open up about a very personal and incredibly special event that took place last February that not many people know much about. By now, most people know that while Sam and I had our wedding ceremony and reception in August, we actually tied the knot in Alaska last February. It’s our first anniversary and I am just so in love with our love so I’m going to be sappy and share a bit about our journey into marriage and the lessons I learned along the way. You can stop reading now if you want, but I’m going to take a stroll down memory lane because it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to ;)
It’s funny looking back on my time in Alaska because there were so many people that swore I would move to Alaska, fall in love, and never want to come home. Truth be told, it happened and I could not be happier about that! Sam and I met in Alaska about a month after I moved there and the rest is history. You might not believe me when I say it, but I knew the moment I met Sam that he was going to be my husband. Ask my friend Nina, she has screenshots of our texts from the day I met Sam that say the same. Anywho, while I do believe for us that it was love at first sight, I’m not some crazy dive right in kind of person, and Sam and I dated for a little over two years before he proposed. While we’re young in the scheme of life, we went through a lot that tested our characters, both as individuals and as a couple in those two years. Each adventure, accident, and event only furthered our knowledge that we were right in thinking that we’d found the person we would enter into marriage with. 
On March 25th of 2017, Sam and I decided to take a trip across a solidly frozen Lake Iliamna to visit our friend Kelsey in the neighboring village, Kokhanok. I truly had no inkling of a thought that this would be the day that Sam would propose, and bought into his line about wanting to stop halfway across the ice to take pictures. We’d crossed the lake only once before and hadn’t stopped for pictures, so it made sense. I mean how often do you get to take a 45 minute drive on a 4-wheeler, on an ice road in rural Alaska? So, we stopped for pictures and I made it tough on the poor guy as I all but refused to get off the Honda while he snapped pictures. Then, before I knew it, he was proposing and I was crying and then I was engaged and wearing the most beautiful ring as I called my parents, still standing on this frozen lake to tell them all about it. The next few days were a whirlwind as we let people in on our fun news and began to plan a wedding.
Here’s where, in typical Alaska fashion, things take a bit of a turn from the usual. Most people who know me know that I am not one to be center of attention and would much rather spend my time making sure other people are happy. While I certainly had dreams of marriage and happily ever after, I never had dreams of some fairytale wedding that I NEEDED to have in order to be happy. So Sam and I began to plan the wedding that we dreamed of together; our wedding would be something simple and low-key and inclusive of all of our loved ones. With life in Alaska and only having a few months home in the summer, we picked a date almost a year and a half after our engagement, which I know is typical, but we just wanted to be married then and there! For us, getting engaged just solidified the fact that we were ready for marriage and we honestly didn’t want to have some long drawn out season of engagement.
Please know that I am not in any way putting down people who have long engagements. I am a huge proponent of people doing what makes them happy and for some people that’s having a certain wedding date or venue; for others it means taking a flight to Vegas. For us, it meant getting married and then having a wedding. As I wrote earlier, Sam and I have been through some really tough seasons of life within the season of our relationship. Before we met each other, I had lost a grandparent very unexpectedly and Sam suffered the loss of his dog and house in a tragic fire. Then, as a couple we suffered the tragic and unexpected loss of Sam’s best friend who had also become a friend of mine. Soon after that, our dear friend lost her fiancé in a tragic plane accident. We might be young, but we understand the depth of tragedy and loss and how precious our fleeting time here on Earth is. To be honest, after our engagement I wanted to get married right away, because I was in the mindset of “if anything happens to me, I want to have been Sam’s wife for even just a moment”. Think what you will of that mindset, but life is shorter than you think and I want to spend every moment of it that I can, as Sam’s wife.
With that said, we picked the date of August 11th, 2018 (81118) and set to work making plans. I knew that having a wedding on my family’s Christmas tree farm was the only thing that I wanted, and my Uncle John quickly agreed to host our shindig. We finished out the 2016-2017 school year, deciding to stay in Alaska for at least one more year as I began a yearlong graduate school program. It was in the summer of 2017, that we had the idea of making our marriage official before the wedding. In all honesty, I wanted my cake and to eat it too. I wanted to be married then, but also to wear the white dress and have my dad walk me down the aisle. So, we decided to tie the knot on August 11th, 2017 which would be exactly one year before our wedding with friends and family. We were in Florida, and got so far as getting a marriage license, and traveling to a beach near a County Courthouse, before I let the thoughts and what I thought would be judgment of other people cloud what I wanted. Just remember that I have a lifetime of experience as a grade A people-pleaser. I was filled with thoughts of how people would think we were silly for getting married and then having a wedding and feared that people wouldn’t attend our wedding if they knew we’d already been married first. I let those thoughts eat away at me for days and then Sam and I decided that it wasn’t the right timing because we should only be filled with excitement. Let me be clear in the fact that I had absolutely zero hesitations in marrying Sam, but at the time I don’t think I was ready to become a wife. 
Maybe that doesn’t make sense or come across as sounding right, but learning how to be a wife and make decisions for a family is an intensely emotional commitment. On August 11th, 2017 I was learned that I was not yet in a place where I could put the desires of myself and my soon-to-be husband first. But my goodness was that day an eye opener for me and how I have felt such inner growth since then. It was on that day that I stopped saying “yes” to everything and started saying “no” to people and events that didn’t bring me happiness. I still have a long way to go, but I am so darn grateful for the lessons I learned on “the day we almost got married”.
We’ll fast forward now to a few months later in December of 2017, a point in which we had made the decision that the 2017-2018 school year would be our last in Alaska, for now, and that we’d make a cross-country move in the spring of 2018. It was exciting and bittersweet, and again came up the conversations of getting married before our August ceremony. Alaska brought so much joy into my life and growth for me as an individual and will always have a hold on my heart and be thought of as “home". I wanted nothing more than to end my time in Alaska as Sam’s wife and to be married in the place in which most of our relationship had taken place. So, when we went out to Anchorage over winter break, we once again got a marriage license. This time, however, when those thoughts of “what will people say?”, held so much less power because there was this excitement of “this is happening!”. While we got the marriage license in January, we didn’t tie the knot until February. Those of you who know me also know that I have some strange OCD tendencies that I cannot explain. Numbers and dates are important and that’s why February 11th was chosen. Not only was it 6 months before our wedding ceremony, but it equaled out to 181 days prior and the date of our ceremony had 1’s and 8’s in it. Trust me.. February 11th was a good date. The best part? We didn’t make some big fuss over it, and we barely told anyone it was happening! 
Oh gosh, how it was our exciting little secret! We found out how to get someone certified as a marriage commissioner, and then about a week before we got married, asked our friend Kate if she’d marry us. We then asked our friends Shelby and Jon to be our witnesses and for Shelby to snap a few pictures. Kate’s husband, Bill, and their sweet little babe joined us, as did Shelby and Jon’s little boy. In typical Alaska fashion, it was freezing cold and the wind was blowing so hard. I've not thanked them enough for traveling out onto the ice with us and for Shelby for removing her warm mittens to take pictures! We wore all the layers, fur mittens, and there were tears in our eyes as we said our short and sweet vows that we’d written as a couple. We still laugh that I had laminated the vows to ensure safety from the elements, but they have traveled a long way and are still looking good! Much like the proposal, we stood on a frozen Lake Iliamna and in the blink of an eye we were husband and wife! It was that simple and that perfect. It was on the way home that I thought, “why did I ever care what people would think?”. Even more exciting was the fact that one of my best friends got engaged to another of my good friends on the same day that we got married. I told you February 11th was a good date!! Over the next few days and weeks we told certain friends and family members and then made it known on our wedding website for those invited to the August ceremony. After that, we enjoyed our last months in Alaska as husband and wife. We chose not to tell my students or some of the staff that we worked with, but I didn’t hide my wedding band and Sam didn’t hide his; if people questioned it we answered, but we didn’t go out of our way to make it publicly known. For all intents and purposes, August 11th would be the day for everyone else to know and remember!
Then, on August 11th, I got to wear two very beautiful white dresses and walked down the aisle holding onto my dad’s arm, in front of family and friends, in a barn on my family’s Christmas tree farm. It was no less special and nothing was lacking in the day as a result of tying the knot 6 months earlier. Honestly I think it was so much more enjoyable knowing that we'd already gotten hitched! We recited those same laminated vows and had our dear friend Giovanni officiate the wedding. There were dances and wedding cake, photos of our Alaska wedding and teary eyes during speeches. I proudly walked around the tent passing out cookies because it was my day and I just love making other people smile. I never ever feel completely relaxed, but oh how blissfully calm I felt throughout the whole day! There aren’t enough words to describe how perfectly “us” the wedding was. It was by no means the perfect day on paper; it was hot and it rained most of the day, the tent was pretty snug, and I forgot to toss the bouquet until there were only a handful of people left. But I was there celebrating my marriage to my best friend with my dearest loved ones and some of my best friends. It was so perfectly imperfect and I would not have had it any other way.
Until next time, I pray that you’ll be well and I will try to keep updated on things happening here in Hummelstown, PA. Between now and the next time, I hope you’ll show some support to my wellness journey endeavors! For anyone wanting to follow along, find me on Instagram or follow the links below!
Instagram: @sapdak.wellness
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sapdakwellness/
Blog: www.sapdak.com
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