Cruising on love

Who doesn’t love a good high school reunion? It’s where you stroll down memory lane, reconnect with old friends, make new ones, and in the case of Samantha Pennycooke and Damian Francis, find true love.

“We met at Meadowbrook High School’s reunion, held at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston. I took a group picture with him and a friend, but I did not know who he was,” Samantha explained to Island Wedding.

Some of the attendees moved the after-party to a city lounge, where she first noticed Damian and caught him staring in her direction. Two weeks later, Damian made it his mission to get Samantha’s number.

“He contacted a mutual friend for my number. That friend asked for my permission, and stated that he was the cousin of another friend of ours,” she recalled, adding, “Because he was the cousin of another friend, I gave the go-ahead to give him my number.”

Understanding and ‘acing’ the assignment, Damian tested the waters, which led to a chance at romance.

“We spent two weeks texting each other non-stop as friends before he invited me to his friend’s house, where he had a birthday the day before his. The next day he also asked me to his house for his birthday party. It was not a date, but I was spending time with him on his birthday,” Samantha admitted.

It wasn’t long before the two went from strangers to best friends. When intimacy entered the picture, they embraced the natural progression, attributing it to making each other a daily priority.

Scoring high marks for being loyal, fun, caring, kind, and determined, Samantha is grateful to connect with her beloved on a deeply emotional and spiritual level.

“He showed me what it feels like to truly be happy and not settle for anything that does not give me that, whether professionally or socially. So, I live in peace and happiness, and anything that is less or seeks to disrupt that feeling will be terminated. He is intentional about everything he does for me, and only strives for excellence. We are in sync; there is rarely an occasion where we are not aligned. Our relationship is indeed bliss; we are both spiritual and continue to pray for guidance each day,” she highlighted.

From the moment Samantha entered Damian’s life, she had changed it completely. “She is beautiful, supportive in the sense that she believes in me more than I believe in myself. She is always encouraging me to go after my dreams. I am currently a football coach, and that’s all because of her. And she is loyal, determined and truly amazing,” he revealed.

So, it was only natural that he took their love a step further by asking Samantha to marry him. He popped the question during a vacation.

“She pushed for me to accompany her to Greece with some friends, and then I finally decided to go. While at Nimbus Mykonos on Mykonos Island, I met with the management team for the villa, informed them of the proposal, and I was offered a private beach to do it.”

Samantha recounted the romantic gestures leading up to the grand proposal. “Handwritten notes were delivered to me throughout the afternoon. He arranged a private massage at the spa for me, then more handwritten notes led me to the beach at the villa, where I was met with him and a bouquet of red roses on bended knees with my friends in the background.”

After patiently waiting for her arrival, “I then went on my knees once she got closer and popped the question.” A surprised Samantha burst into tears before saying yes.

MARRIED AT SEA

The engaged couple planned every aspect of their wedding. “We decided on a six-day cruise wedding. So, our wedding day was at sea. We told the cruise planner what we wanted, and they made it happen. We wanted a destination wedding, but wanted it to be unique and fun for us and our guests, creating an experience, and that’s precisely what we did.”

On August 19, Damian and Samantha became husband and wife on the Celebrity Beyond cruise ship. The groom shared, “The wedding was awesome and everything we wanted. The best moment was seeing my wife making her entrance into the venue. My eyes got watery at that point.”

His beautiful bride, who also got emotional before she walked into the ceremony, agreed that the nuptials were amazing. “Our wedding was magical. I finally got to experience pure love, that feeling in Hallmark movies where couples fall in love and get married. It was more than I had hoped for; I had no idea I would have that feeling,” the bride shared.

The newly-weds shared both an entrance dance and their official first dance. They entered the reception to Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love and a medley of Vybz Kartel’s songs, then danced for the first time as husband and wife to You Are The Reason by Calum Scott.

“This song made me cry on his shoulder. With tears of joy rolling down my cheeks, I fell right into the arms of my now husband,” Mrs Francis added.

krysta.anderson@gleanerjm.com