After a Circuitous Courtship, a ‘Crazy’ Wedding Ceremony

Susan Hampton Alavi and Evan Michael Schaeffer dated in suits and begins for nearly a decade earlier than settling into a regular relationship, a lot of which was lengthy distance.

The two, each 25, met in 2010 on their first day as freshman at William G. Enloe High School in Raleigh, N.C., the place a mutual good friend launched them throughout lunch. A month later, Mr. Schaeffer requested Ms. Alavi to be his girlfriend. “We were at the North Carolina State Fair, stopped on top of the Ferris wheel,” she mentioned.

“That same night he told me that he loved me,” Ms. Alavi added, “and my 14-year-old heart was not ready for that.” She broke up with him inside a week, however the two remained pals.

They received again collectively as seniors in 2013, after Mr. Schaeffer reworked his class schedule to higher align with hers. “I dropped out of a high-level calculus to take class with Susan,” he mentioned. When she requested him to tutor her for the mathematics part of the S.A.T.s., “Evan happily agreed to spend extra time with me and quickly graduated from tutor to boyfriend,” Ms. Alavi mentioned.

They remained a couple after they began faculty collectively in 2014 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the place she would ultimately earn a bachelor’s diploma in communications, and he in enterprise administration. But by that October, that they had damaged it off.

From then, “We would go back and forth between being friends and more,” Ms. Alavi mentioned. In December 2017, as faculty seniors, they once more began courting critically, solely to interrupt up a number of months later, in May 2018.

Early that summer season, after getting back from a two-week journey to Italy and Germany, Mr. Schaeffer requested Ms. Alavi to attempt life as a couple yet one more time. By August 2018, she had agreed.

That similar month, the 2 started graduate applications in Raleigh; she at Meredith College, the place she earned a paralegal certificates, and he at North Carolina State University, the place he acquired a grasp’s diploma in superior analytics.

After each completed their graduate applications in June 2019, Mr. Schaeffer moved to Atlanta, the place he works as a information science advisor at a native workplace of Slalom, a consulting agency in Seattle. Ms. Alavi stayed in Raleigh to work at a Christian camp for kids.

“Dating long distance after our graduate programs was one of the best things that happened to us,” Ms. Alavi mentioned. “It forced us to create intentional moments and helped me truly see that I want him in my life all the time, not just when it’s convenient.”

Mr. Schaeffer proposed in November 2020, whereas the 2 had been in Hilton Head, S.C. Following a stroll that ended “at this really nice resort on the island,” they walked out onto a dock “that sat on the most beautiful marshy waterway,” Ms. Alavi mentioned. “At end of the dock, I felt him get a little shaky and immediately knew what was happening.”

In October 2021, she started to relocate to Atlanta, the place she now lives with Mr. Schaffer and works remotely for her household’s enterprise, Highland Builders in Raleigh.

The two had been wed April 24 on the Creek Club at I’On in Mount Pleasant, S.C., earlier than 99 visitors, who had been requested to be vaccinated. But very similar to their romance, the ceremony adopted something however a direct course.

Their officiant, a notary public, turned in poor health after the ring trade and fainted, first into the flower-adorned cross behind him after which into some bushes.

Luckily, three nurses had been among the many visitors and rushed to his facet because the group awaited an ambulance. When it arrived, the officiant was wheeled out on a stretcher to a standing ovation and, Mr. Schaeffer mentioned, “with a smile on his face.”

Ms. Alavi’s cousin Justin House, a pastor at Oregon City Evangelical Church, mentioned a prayer for the officiant earlier than ending the ceremony. The couple’s day-of marriage ceremony coordinator, Lindsay Heirs, who can be a notary, signed their marriage license.

“The wedding itself ended up to be the most fun night of our life, but only after a crazy event,” Mr. Schaeffer mentioned. “We wish we were making this up.”

He added that they had been glad to have employed a videographer to seize footage of the occasion. “We can’t wait to show it to our kids one day so they believe us.”