Ships Passing in the Night
Sarah and Christian grew up a mile away from each other, for most of their lives. They went to the same middle and high school. They both swam on the Lawrence North Swim Team, C for several years. S joined the year C left, but only swam for a season before they tried to make her go to morning practice. C lifeguarded at the neighborhood pool of S’s college roommate. They both studied (sometimes) at Indiana University down in Bloomington. But they never crossed paths until they’d both graduated.
Well, technically C remembers seeing S at a party in a friend’s basement. He claims that as she was leaving, he asked his friends “who’s that girl walking up the stairs”, but after prompt teasing ensued, he dropped his burning questions.
The Beginning
The stars finally aligned in 2017 when they both downloaded Tinder…again. They both had some very bad dates that led them to delete the app, twice. They swiped right on each other. C opened with a question to S about her recent trip abroad with a friend. Travel was S’s favorite conversation topic, so this was a strong start. For the next two weeks, you could find S and C typing novels to each other, glued to their phones in the middle of parties, bars, and work.
C was living in Indianapolis at the time and eventually made an excuse to visit Bloomington where S was still living. They had their first date at Upstairs, a mutual favorite bar on Kirkwood with which they were both (probably a little too) familiar.
It was a love at first sight ordeal. S showed C her collection of Harry Potter wands that first night and he didn’t laugh at all . His restraint earned C a second date which came a few days later. In truth, C was relieved that he’d met a fellow NERD and revealed his obsession with board games, which S found equally endearing. The spark was lit and they had as many dates as their schedules would allow over coming weeks.
Dating
Somewhere around the one month mark, S asked C to be her boyfriend the night before she left on another trip abroad to Amsterdam with a few friends. (She would remind him of this over the years and make sure he knew the next question – the one asked on one knee – would have to come from him.)
When she returned, C was spending most night’s at S’s home. They almost immediately booked a trip to Portugal, under the guise of visiting S’s roommate who was on her own journey around the world and living in Portugal for a month. Some friends cautioned C that he shouldn’t plan a trip abroad with a girl four months out when they’d only been seeing each other for four weeks. Sound advice, but advice he immediately ignored.
In October of 2017, they spent a few weeks tasting port, eating seafood, and sleeping in palaces, monasteries, and cheap hostels throughout the country. A magical trip to Portugal in the books, S and C knew they were compatible as travel buddies. One giant box checked.
From there, the relationship began to really blossom. But S had big plans to travel around the world and she wasn’t always sure where C fit in. She reminded him of this more than was probably necessary in those early days.
After a year, C sent S off on a six month solo trip around the world, hoping she’d come back. She received care packages in London and Germany. They played games on laptops from together in cafes from different countries, had facetime calls from Russia and South Korea. They reunited for three weeks in Japan for their second international trip, where they tried Chicken Sashimi, sang karaoke, and depend our love for sushi. After another month and a half of S traveling Canada and the U.S. West Coast, they reunited again in San Diego for the wedding of C’s sister, Alex, and her now-husband Ty.
The next few years brought so many adventures.
Three different moves. A pandemic. More long distance when C took a job with travel to Uganda. A first trip to Uganda together, where they trekked with rhinos, rappelled down a waterfall, and rafted down the Nile River for Sarah’s 25th birthday. An extremely extravagant stay at the St. Regis in Abu Dhabi thanks to C’s mother’s generous donation of some Marriott points. A wedding in Mexico where they discovered they loved Mezcal.
Stateside, C taught S how to sail on Geist Reservoir where he’d spent his teenage years on the water. They found a beautiful group of friends in Indiana. They spent time with family, and took a few more family vacations to the BVIs and Disney, never letting the adventures stop. And along the way they grew together from young twenty-year-olds fresh out of college, to nearly-30 somethings, still very much figuring things out.
The Proposal
The summer of 2022 brought the adventure that would propel their relationship into the next phase. C and S took a second trip to Uganda for three months, with plans to visit Belgium and Amsterdam on the way home (where they were to meet up with C’s mom, sister, and two of Alex’s friends).
The entire story deserves its own page, and S plans to give it one. It’s absolutely worth a read. But for the abridged version…
While in Uganda, C planned an extravagant treasure hunt throughout Kampala for S. With a literal treasure map and clues hidden throughout her favorite places in the city. Her treasure was a gorgeous leather wallet she’d been eyeing in a shop. Inside the wallet she found a ticket with dinner reservations in the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Scotland is S’s favorite place and where a lot of her ancestry traces, per Ancestry DNA. C had extended their trip for an extra week and S could hardly wait.
In the Isle of Skye, C popped the question on a beautiful, rocky beach, and surprised S by coordinating both of their sisters, Emily and Alex, to be there for the proposal. The four spent an incredible few days together exploring and road-tripping, celebrating their new engagement and soaking up every ounce of gorgeous Scotland scenery.
The Wedding
As C and S began the wedding planning process, they found themselves a little uninspired by an Indiana wedding. One day S tossed out the idea of a cruise wedding. For the first time in the planning process, they thought they’d finally found something that felt like them. After a few months of mulling it over, they decided to follow their hearts and move forward with cruise wedding plans.
And so that brings us up to the current day! C and S are so excited to celebrate their nuptials at sea, in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Truly an adventure of a lifetime.
The Next Big Adventure
This Cruise isn’t the last adventure S and C have planned. (Though at this point in the story that may not come as a surprise!)
In keeping with Sarah’s restless heart, Christian’s experience with sailing, and both of their love of being on the water, they have a big dream on the horizon.
(An aside from S to brag about her fiancé – Did you know C has sailed over 7000 nautical miles, from the Caribbean through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific Ocean for 18days without seeing land, to Tahiti?)
S and C are planning another round-the-world trip, this time together, by sea instead of by land. Their dream is to buy a boat and set sail for a grand circumnavigation of the globe. They’re aiming to set sail in 2025 with plans to spend 3 years at sea exploring all the far away islands and coastal cities that are hard to reach by plane, train, or automobile.
It’s a big dream. One that they share. One that they haven’t been able to let go of since the first conversation was had years ago, back when S was trying to convince C to buy an RV and travel around the world in an entirely different vehicle.
They are squirreling away their dollars and keeping their eyes open for the perfect place, the perfect boat, to call their next home.
S and C deeply appreciate the support they’ve gotten from family and friends throughout the years, in their relationship, and in following their wild dreams. While this dream brings a few butterflies and uncertainties, they are pursuing it wholeheartedly and can’t wait to have our wedding guests as future visitors on island vacations in the coming years.
If you happen to know anyone selling a ~40-foot blue water boat, C and S humbly request you pass their information along.
Until then, they cannot WAIT to celebrate at sea with those who can attend, and on land with those whose sea legs aren’t quite ready yet.
With love and happiness and excitement from the bottom of our wanderer’s hearts,
Sarah & Christian