Today I want to share the beautiful love story between Maya and Lex, as told by Maya. The intimate wedding was held at Frank's at the Old Mill in Fayetteville, GA. A reception dinner came afterward, complete with a marine sword cake cutting! I don't know if I've ever seen a bride smile so much, she must really love this man! The entire event was super relaxed and full of love - Congratulations to Maya and Lex!
(From Maya) Our Love Story:
"Our love story started back in college. I was a student at Georgia Southern University (GSU) in Statesboro, GA and Lex was attending Savannah State University in Savannah, GA. These two universities are located an hour away from each other. Despite the hour drive, Lex came up to my university pretty often on the weekends, because “the Real GSU” had the best parties. The first time we met was a few years ago at a house party. He introduced himself, we chatted, and we exchanged numbers. We ended up dating for about four months, but unfortunately our paths at the time were headed in different directions. While in school, he was in the process of joining the Marine Corps, and I was spending my extra time outside of school heading home to Atlanta to take care of sick family members. So we mutually decided to go our separate ways and handle our responsibilities, vowing to one day find each other again.
It was after Thanksgiving in 2016, we reconnected through social media. He was finishing up with an extremely difficult course in Virginia for the Marines, and I had moved back to Atlanta to be more available to family members who needed me. We texted non stop when he was allowed to and eventually when training was over the texting turned into hours of conversation on the phone, which was unusual for both of us because neither of us like talking on the phone. He eventually went on leave for Christmas and was able to go home for a few days. What a joyous surprise when we discovered that his hometown is 30 minutes away from Atlanta! On December 27, 2017, Lex and I went on our first date since college. We went to the movies and saw “Sing.” Lex found out it was a children’s movie and was a little taken aback by my choice, but he sucked it up and saw it with me anyways. Needless to say he enjoyed the movie and our date, and when he left to go back to Virginia we continued our endless conversations.
At the end of January, Lex was back in town on leave and we went on more dates. With each encounter our love for each other continued to grow stronger. We uttered the words “I love you” for the first time on January 28th, 2017. And as to be expected from someone in the military life, a couple of days later he left again to head back up to Virginia. We first brought up the topic of marriage soon after that and started asking each other serious questions about opinions on how to raise a family and what our values were. On President’s Day weekend, he had free time to spend with me and flew me up to Virginia for a late Valentine’s Day surprise. Lex had planned a surprise outing in which he took me to look at engagement rings to see what I like and what my style was.
After several serious and long conversations during our weekend getaway, we decided that it would be best to get married on May 12th, 2017. We were debating on several locations on the east coast, but eventually decided to have a courthouse wedding in Atlanta metro area so we could better accommodate our families. Between our weekend together and mid March we made a lot of decisions on the significant wedding details we wanted. We announced to our parents that we were planning on getting married. They were quite shocked that we wanted to get married considering that we had only been dating for a short time span and that’s not the norm in today’s society. But knowing that Lex and I are both stubborn and go after what we truly want and get it done, they gave their blessings regardless, albeit several serious conversations later.
At this point in the planning, everything was going smoothly. He was very involved throughout the process, even though he was hundreds of miles away. In addition, Lex had my engagement ring and had already planned out how he was going to propose since the next time we were going to see each other in person was going to be a couple of days before the wedding. Or so we thought. Once again Lex found himself with some extra free time and I ended up making another impromptu trip to Virginia to spend time with him. Before I came up however, he told me that since he already had an idea of how he was going to propose, he was not going to do it early just because I decided to deviate from the original plan and come to Virginia. I pouted for about five minutes but then I was over it, because I was just too overwhelmed with joy talking about the wedding and what are lives were going to be like after we were married. We spent that time just living in the present and enjoying ourselves.
It was May 6th, 2017. My husband told me that he had to go out of town for work. Our moms and other family members took me to dinner to my favorite restaurant that I’ve been going to since I was a toddler, Loca Luna. I was thinking this was my family’s way of having a bachelorette party, since Lex and I decided that neither of us would have one. Before we went to dinner my mom took me to a store to buy cliche bachelorette party stuff, like a crown, sash, party favors, etc. We went to the restaurant and met up with the family. When we sat down I realized that my mom had yet to give me the crown and sash that she bought for me to wear. I brought it up to my mom and in the midst of asking about it, I was served food. So naturally I was distracted and let it go. As I was eating, I heard the music suddenly change to soft, romantic melody in mid-song. But because I was stuffing my face, I didn’t think anything of it. Then I heard a smooth and familiar voice speak into the microphone and begin reading off a poem that I had heard before, but I just continued to munch on my fish tacos. Then in mid- bite, I heard the voice say my full name and asked me to come to the stage. I was so confused at what was going on, so I chewed my food as quickly as I could and walked up to the stage. As I turned around to face the crowd, looking for this mystery person to show themselves, Lex came out from backstage, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. I don’t even remember saying yes, I just remember how it felt feeling the ring slide over my finger for the first time. I was so shocked, surprised, and overjoyed that it took me several minutes to realize that Lex was the voice on the microphone, and the poem that he read was one that he had written in a card with flowers and had sent to my home a couple of months earlier.
A couple of days later, we started having minor issues with vendors. We had to find a new location as well as other things. But it turned out for the best, because Frank’s was more sentimental to us due to previous family celebrations being held there. There were also mishaps with other small details which was thankfully handled by our family on the wedding day, so we had no worries. We had a great time at our wedding! Our ceremony was outdoors, it didn't rain, and our family and friends took time out of their day to celebrate. The food was great and the photos turned about great. We are coming up on our three month anniversary and we truly couldn't be happier!"
And now: Wedding pictures, pictures, pictures!!!
FIN: Atlanta Wedding Photographers