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9 Jan

Bridal Bliss: Leah And Rodney Said ‘I Do’ With

Bridal Bliss: Leah And Rodney Said ‘I Do’ With

Amanda Evans Photography

Of all of the places Leah and Rodney could have first encountered each other, it just so happened to be Kenya. Sure beats your local bar or networking event, right?

It was July 2018, and on the time, Leah, a Wisconsin native born to Nigerian and Panamanian parents, was living and dealing in Nairobi. Rodney, though born in Kenya to Sierra Leonean parents, was just visiting while based out of Lusaka, Zambia. As exotic as all which will sound, despite the dreamy locale, they really didn’t encounter each other in person while, say, perusing an area market or hanging out at a preferred attraction. Their love story actually began on a dating app within the East African country.

“I used to be casually browsing Tinder, as one does after they are newly single, and saw that Rodney had super liked me,” Leah recalls. She noticed they’d various things in common, including their membership within the Divine Nine (he’s an Alpha, she’s an AKA), and decided to attach with him. “I proposed a date at my favorite nightclub on the time because I knew I could at all times signal to friends to rescue me in case he was boring,” she says. “Seems that wouldn’t be crucial.”

While the 2 were immediately interested in each other, in addition they found that conversation got here easy, a warm connection easily being fostered. Once they weren’t talking, they were dancing the night away, literally ending their first outing after 3 a.m. The primary date would turn right into a second the subsequent day, and a 3rd the day after that. They spent every day together until he needed to fly back to Zambia on that Sunday.

And while starting a relationship with someone living out of the country is usually enough to scare away many in search of love, Leah and Rodney weren’t deterred. Through their long-distance relationship, they’d learn more about one another because the days passed, from his compassion and dedication to her, to his appreciation for her tender love and care not only for him but additionally his family. As their bond grew from afar, they’d finally get the prospect to check it in person for an prolonged time period when the world shut down in 2020. That have let Rodney know he’d found his person.

“Because of COVID and subsequent border closures, I got stuck in Kenya,” he says. “We went from seeing one another for a couple of days every six to eight weeks to being together every single day with nobody else around. When you undergo that together and realize you continue to like one another, and need to be around one another, you’re able to do life together.” 

A yr later, he put plans in place to have them do life together officially, aiming to propose in March 2021. While there have been some hiccups to creating that occur (more on that later), he was in a position to ask for her hand, making a scrapbook of all their travels together to pop the query.

4 years after they first met in Nairobi, the couple married removed from where they first connected, opting to say “I do” in Leah’s native Wisconsin, in Milwaukee and Mequon, on July 2 and three. They’d two ceremonies, honoring their Nigerian and Sierra Leonean cultures with a standard ceremony on Saturday and a white wedding on Sunday. Each events were successful, which is a giant deal considering the couple planned the nuptials from abroad while moving to their newest home in Vejle, Denmark. “Planning a marriage remotely whilst moving to a recent country during a pandemic is a recent level of organized chaos, but every part worked out higher than we could have imagined!” Leah says.

And the photos from each days definitely prove that, because the couple, officially Mr. and Mrs. Carew, were captured smiling from ear to ear in all the pictures. Take a look at all the colour, culture and creativity that went into their West African inspired wedding weekend in Wisconsin and learn more about their love story on this week’s Bridal Bliss.

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