It wasn’t love at first sight for Amanda & T’Neil, but their romance is certainly what epic love stories are made of. Now call me an old sop, but what a great movie their story would make!
“T’Neil and I met through our parents in our mid teens,” began Amanda. “It was one of those friendships you had because your parents ‘encouraged’ it. The two of us could not have been more different if we tried to be – she was miss pep and I was miss ‘leave me the heck alone’. I wanted to set her pom poms on fire and she says she was scared to death I was gonna beat her up or something! Through the first year that we were ‘encouraged’ to be friends it was a lot of small talk and ‘my dad said to ask you if you wanna hang out’ invites – movies, the mall, game nights.”
“Then we began to see that we weren’t so different after all; we had more in common than we wanted to admit even to ourselves. What was once an ‘encouraged’ friendship became inside jokes, sleep overs, and overnight texting. We look back now after 7 years of the best friendship and we can’t say what was the moment it all changed, but somewhere over the years of helping each other through a move across states, the sickness and death of a parent and divorce of others, heartbreaks, injuries and so much more, we became inseparable. And eventually best friendship turned into a ‘once in a lifetime’, movie script type of love, with all the tests of A Lot Like Love, hope of A Walk to Remember and love of The Notebook.”
AWWWW!
With a first date seeing Cats in Chicago and a proposal at Rent on Broadway in New York, a theatre wedding was the obvious choice for this pair. “When the big day finally arrived, it could be nothing less than a red carpet affair. From a walk down the yellow brick road to a ceremony set on a theatrical stage; a little music from T’Neil’s father singing as he gave her away and the emotionally sung vows that she surprised me with. This was all followed by a red carpet entrance with our name in lights. Our wedding was truly the magical ending to a story that started out not so happily ever after.”
To make their wedding their own, Amanda took to Pinterest to find as many DIY ideas as possible. “Amamda took to Pinterest like all the other crazy brides who want their day to be perfect”, T’Neil laughed. “She spent weeks on the computer finding ideas and then making them her own. She custom designed a logo with our last names and made ticket stubs and playbill programs. Our bridal party even stayed up till midnight the night before making thing including light up letters – we wanted our names up in in lights! I’d say our wedding a 90% DIY.”
So fun! Thank you to Amanda & T’Neil and their wedding photographer Kristin La Voie for sharing with us today.
