How We Met

Michael and Sam met like any normal couple do... through Sam's previous partner... whoops! Michael was the roommate of someone Sam was seeing in 2020 and they spent a lot of time together during the COVID shutdown. Their COVID pod is when they became really close through a year of game nights, fancy dinners at home, gardening, holidays, and mostly a place to call home when visiting their own families didn't feel safe. Although that partner wasn't right for Sam (obviously), that relationship is what brought her Michael. (Nothing scandalous happened though, we swear!)

After the separation of the pod in early 2021, Michael was really there for Sam helping to ease the transition back to single life. They remained friends and spent the following summer eating and drinking their way through Raleigh as two single besties doing bestie shit. Once Sam's lease was ending at her apartment that summer, she quickly realized she would not be able to afford living on her own and the panic set in. But Michael was there again. He made the decision to move as well, and they started looking at apartments together even though Sam was nervous to make that big jump from besties to roommates. How well do they really know each other? Enough to live together?

By the end of the summer Michael and Sam were looking at tons of apartments together with no luck of a space that felt big enough to both work from home 5 days a week and still be affordable. Little did Sam know that Michael was also looking at the housing market simultaneously... During one of their weekend searches, they were apartment hunting and he told her there was one more place he wanted to tour. They drove into a beautiful tree filled neighborhood down into a cull-de-sac and Sam very confused asked, "what are we doing here?" and he said "we are going to live here" pointing to the Under Contract sign in the front lawn. A beautiful home that they moved into in September of 2021 and that is where their relationship blossomed. A little unconventional to go from roommates to partners in the same breath, but it happened the way it was supposed to.

They kept their relationship tight lipped to have time to feel things out without any pressure or worries for quite some time. The following year in late Spring of 2022 is when the news that they were together was shared with all their family and friends and it's been an amazing love story ever since. After 3 years of building a home together through house renovations, adopting new pets, a million garden beds, a shit ton of hosted house parties, and a constant state of guest beds filled, they got engaged in November of 2024 on Lake Norman in front of all their closest people!

And now here they are 5 years later getting married! Sam and Michael can not wait to embark on their next level of commitment to each other and continue building a life that they love.