We're getting married!

The last few months we have seen the Lord make it abundantly clear that our relationship was a gift from Him. From a dinner party in college to becoming best friends then falling in love, this story is so good it could’ve only been orchestrated by Him. Over two thousand two hundred and twenty two miles away with God leading us we’ve been learning how to love and care for one another. Neither of us planned on getting married so quickly, but Steven in Steven fashion, wanted Cordaellia to pursue her childhood dreams of serving overseas. When you know you know, and we eventually realized that we were meant to be in each others lives. So when Cordaellia found out she was moving to Japan in August, Steven knew he had to pop the question. Steven knew that she was the one and he had to pursue her no matter where God led her. He did not want to lose her and knew that she was worth all of it. The feelings would’ve been the same had the roles been reversed. Thank you to everyone who has helped teach and raise us. We are incredibly excited to share with you our wedding day on the 17th of August in Cordaellia’s hometown with the sun beaming down and our hearts overflowing with joy. Looking back we can see God's handiwork in our lives preparing and preserving us for each other. Praise God in all His goodness! tiG ✝ “Thus, marriage is a sacrament- holy, blessed, and everlasting in the sight of God and His Church. Within the bonds of marriage, husband and wife experience one another in love. We pray for them the fruit of children and one day the joy of grandchildren. And within the bonds of marriage there is both a fullness and equality between husband and wife and a clarity of order, with the husband as the icon of Christ and the wife as the icon of the Church”- The Orthodox Study Bible. Ephesians 5:8-33

We met for the first time in the spring of 2022 at a dinner party hosted by Cordaellia and our friend Paige. At the time, Paige was dating our friend Patch, who was also Steven’s roommate, so Steven got an invite. At the dinner party, both of us knew most of the people already. However, we did not know each other and both had no idea the love story God would write for us.

After the dinner party we would occasionally see one another passing by at school, Chi Alpha events, and worship nights. In the Fall of 2023, we had a casual talk after a Chi Alpha Elevate. Both of us remember talking to one another about Capstone and how school was going. This conversation was among a few conversations that sparked our friendship. On the evening of Easter Eve 2023 at the Chi Alpha Campout, we developed a deep friendship. We were about done setting up for the night and Steven pulled out a frisbee and started throwing it with some friends. Cordaellia who is always in a mood for some fun wanting to join in. Steven remembers teaching Cordaellia how to throw a frisbee and how she on one of her MANY errant throws almost hit our friend in his hammock. Later that night, there was a typical roaring Chi Alpha fire and Steven, Cordaellia, and Matt decided to explore and find the waterfall. Once we found it Matt was blissfully in his own mindscape hopping around the rocks. With Matt in his own world, he left us alone. Please note this was not the only time Matt did this. We spent the next hour or two talking about theology, The Pilgrim's Progress, and our testimonies of how God has worked in our lives. For both of us, this was the most meaningful conversation we had and ignited our deep friendship. Not only that, we were finally both on each others radar. After the Easter Eve campout, Steven remembers having a crush on Cordaellia, but being too scared to ask her out because graduation was right around the corner. This meant that Cordaellia would be commissioning into the Air Force and moving to Florida one week after graduation. Steven did not want to enter into a long distance relationship, so he chickened out. Cordaellia also had a crush on Steven, but wouldn't do anything about it, since there was so much going on, so she let it go to God. However, as they would find out later, God had other plans. After Cordaellia had moved to Panama City, FL it was not until early August that Steven reached out to her, and they ended up talking on the phone for 5 hours. It was at a time when Cordaellia was alone and having a hard time finding community. At the same time, Steven had just moved up to Lancaster, CA after spending the whole summer with friends and family. Both were looking for friendship and deep meaningful companionship. That phone call opened the door to more phone calls and FaceTimes; each being hours long. Our last phone call before dating was the most important. Steven realized Cordaellia was coming to California for Christmas and New Years. He had an epiphany to go camping with some of our friends in Morro Bay; so Cordaellia could see her friends from college. Thus we planned out the weekend camping trip not knowing what the Lord had in store for us.

The camping trip started with Cordaellia, Matt, Brandon, and Steven. We all shared stories about the months since graduation. Steven was crushing hard on Cordaellia that night. Little did he know Cordaellia also had a secret crush on him. As a rain storm rolled in and the fire simmered out, we all hopped into our tents and went to sleep. That night, the rain really came down. Steven woke up at 1 am with his tent halfway floating in a puddle of deep water. Steven had swapped tents that afternoon with Cordaellia saving her from being trapped in the tent boat. That morning we all saw the king tide waves crashing on Morro Rock. Later that day, Matt and Brandon went off to Hearst Castle. Matt forgot to include us when he bought the tickets, and also told us that they wouldn’t be spending the night with us. So we were left alone together and drove down the coast to go hiking. Steven thought of how nice it was to drive Cordaellia places, Cordaellia thought of how sweet it was to be with Steven and how kind he was to her. The hike was awesome, we enjoyed every minute of it. At the peak, there was a beautiful view of a luscious green valley with the sun poking through big billowing clouds and a look out over San Luis Obispo. After running and sliding down the peak and getting ready to drive back Steven turned on some Alan Jackson love songs and unknowingly serenaded Cordaellia. Reconnecting with our friends we said goodbye at dinner. It was just the two of us. With most of the day alone together and relaxing by the campfire, love was in the air. Cordaellia asked Steven what he was thinking about. Steven was secretly thinking about how much he liked Cordaellia, but in typical Steven fashion, he said “that log in the fire." Then Steven asked her the same question and she said “that owl whooing," but she was also thinking about how much she liked him. Both of us refused to hint that we liked each other, afraid of jeopardizing our friendship. A few minutes had passed by and Steven's courage emerged and he shyly said, “If only you were not in Florida, I think I would have asked you out on a date this weekend”. Cordaellia replied, “Yeah?... I probably would have said yes.” Then Steven ecstatically said, “Well, it's not a total loss! There is still tomorrow morning! Would you like that?” Cordaellia replied “Yeah?!? that would be nice.” Then he asked “Cordaellia will you go on a date with me?” and she answered with an excited “Yes!” After the fire had died down, we went on a moonlight walk to this rock formation overlooking Morro Bay. Steven held Cordaellia in his arms as they looked up at the stars in the sky. We talked about how beautiful God’s creation was, and this made Cordaellia like him even more. It had always been so natural to talk about both of our first true love, Jesus, with one another. After a time had passed, Cordaellia thought it would be fun to dance so they went to an empty parking lot and danced to Alan Jackson with the full moon perfectly framed in between two pockets of Eucalyptus trees. We enjoyed the night together and then went to sleep in each of our tents eagerly waiting for our official first date the next morning. Although we both agree that the moonlight walk, stargazing, and dancing was our true first date. Sunday we went to church, then went on our lunch date. By that time Cordaellia started to chicken out before even giving Steven a chance. We decided to leave it all in Morro Bay because Cordaellia was scared of starting a long distance relationship and messing up one of the best friendships she had. Luckily that afternoon after Cordaellia spilled the beans to her mom, she had some sense knocked into her. Her mom said that she had been praying for a guy just like Steven for so long and encouraged her to give it a chance. She called him, thank God he said yes. Both of us are incredibly grateful for the happy accident, since it led to us dating and now we are getting married!