Sunday Is For Lovers: Ashton & Angela Eadie
Sunday Is For Lovers Series, February 2021.
Millennial Love Stories is revisiting couples who’ve previously participated in the series who have chosen to share on their changes since their last interview. Today we share the story of Ashton and Angela Eadie, 36 and 34, newlyweds who weathered the storm of wedding planning and successfully exchanging vows during the pandemic.
For Angela, it was when Ashton prayed over the food on their first official date that she realized this was the man for her. For Ashton, perhaps it was a bit sooner?
The couple is positioned against a wall of exposed brick in their Bed-Stuy apartment on a February morning when Ashton says, “I'm not a person who has these big emotional moments, but I literally saw Angela and I was like, ‘Something is different about her.’ I didn't know what it was, but I knew something.”
That initial meeting was in 2012 during a night out in Kansas City when two friend groups merged into one, by chance. Since then, the road to marriage has been filled with faith in the belief that they just might be each other's someone and trust in that faith transformed into certainly.
In 2018 Ashton and Angela decided they wanted to really give their relationship a try. Ashton relocated to Brooklyn from Chicago and they decided to live together for a year with intentions to discover if they could take the next step to marriage.
“I had a heart to heart conversation with my pastor about what Angela and I were doing as far as the relationship is concerned and marriage” Ashton shares.
Their individual relationships with Christ pulled them closer together as they saw something in one another that they’d not gotten in past relationships, yet felt vital for themselves and in a partner.
Angela shares how that particular value came to be a requirement for her in a partner. “I came to have my own relationship with Christ and then moving across the country, away from my family, really just allowed me to develop my own relationship even further. Losing my mother, being out here by myself, my father being diagnosed with cancer twice, those are things that take you to a place where you have to depend on God because there's nothing else. There's nowhere else to turn.”
“One thing that I never looked for in a relationship was a man who loved the Lord. Once I sat down and thought about that, I was like you can't be surprised that the people that you have dated have not put God at the center of their lives.”
Similarly, Ashton rooted himself in faith. “Coming up, faith was a big part of my household. When I left that household, I still felt like this is my backbone. Moving out here to New York, I knew that I needed to have a good church. She introduced me to the church she was attending and it was incredible. The fact that she had a relationship with the Lord and she was comfortable in that, for me, that was cool. That's a big thing for me.”
Their church has offered a solid foundation for themselves as individuals and as a couple while opening up opportunities to meet other couples who have proven to be great friends and accountability partners along their journey.
“To have people who are definitely rooted in faith, that's a different type of push and accountability. It encourages sustainability because anybody could get married. The goal is to stay married.” says Ashton.
Through the church also came pre-marital and post-marital counseling. For every couple, the counseling experience may look different, Ashton and Angela’s has included: sessions with their pastor and his wife whom they already regarded as good friends, therapy style conversations that touch on everything from past traumas to each other’s positive attributes, a love languages assessment, reading materials (currently: What Did You Expect: Redeeming The Realities of Marriage), and conflict management tactics based in grace for one another.
“When it comes to counseling, you're only going to get out of it as much as you put into it” Angela expresses. “What I love about that book [we’re reading] is that it challenges you to go into marriage saying, ‘I married a sinner and I am a sinner. We're two sinners who are together to serve the Lord.’ When you frame it like that, it really helps with conflict because it's easy to be like, ‘Oh, you wronged me’ and constantly pointing the finger. When you come from a mode of grace, I'm giving my spouse, who's a sinner, grace because I don't want to just get even or get back. I want to understand and I want to move forward.”
On August 3rd, 2019, the day of the proposal, Angela thought she was getting herself ready for a photoshoot for her business as a makeup artist. The preparation routine began at ten-o-clock in the morning: a fresh wash n’ go on her natural, curly fro and a soft glam face made up to perfection.
A lover of classic R&B, it’s not unlike Angela to blast Jagged Edge’s “Let’s Get Married” on a weekend afternoon, however, on this day it seemed particularly suspicious. “He texted my best friend like, ‘I think she knows.’ She replied, ‘She doesn't know. Just keep playing it cool.’ Angela laughs. “He was in the bedroom quiet as a church mouse, freaking out, thinking that I knew.”
There were little clues, like the way Ashton insisted on holding on to his own suit jacket on the hour long train ride to The Met Cloisters even though he was falling asleep, the ring box tucked securely in his jacket pocket. Or the way he stopped her from sharing an impromptu selfie of them with her dad, insisting she wait for the professional photos from the shoot. But Angela had no clue and was truly taken by surprise when after a few shots she turned around expecting to hit a stride to capture a power shot and was met with Ashton on one knee with a ring.
In the proposal video, which can be found on both their Instagram accounts, Angela is visibly overwhelmed with so much emotion it automatically elicits tears from the eyes of anyone watching.
“I'm literally like, “Oh my God. How did you do this? What?” He got me really good.” Angela expresses her feelings in the moment.
“I had one of those feelings like this is a climactic moment in life. I've never felt like that before. Also, I didn't have buyer's remorse.” Ashton continues with a chuckle and a knowing glance from his wife.
Wedding planning for Angela and Ashton began in the “before times”, Pre-Covid. They agreed on a destination wedding and hired a planner to organize arrangements and communications. They selected Negril, Jamaica, a beautiful enclave of the island that would serve as the backdrop of their day and a getaway for family and friends.
The onset of the pandemic put a halt on their planning until summer 2020. With careful consideration of factors like Jamaica’s low virus numbers, stringent testing requirements to enter the country, and plans for an outdoor ceremony they made the choice to move forward with their wedding planned for December.
When we initially spoke to Angela and Ashton in 2019 the pair put a lot of emphasis on building legacy together, for them, a traditional wedding celebration was a part of that legacy that could not be forfeited. It was bigger than just the two of them, it was a moment of leading by example for family members in the younger generation.
“I really wanted family members to see this is what you do when you love someone and this is how you have that crescendo moment because they haven't seen it, especially from young people.” Ashton explains.
On December 12th, 2020, 50 guests gathered on the beach and many more family and friends logged into Zoom to witness the moment the couple became Mr. and Mrs. Eadie. As the sun set over the island, at the altar they stood face to face, tiny purple books in hand where their vows were written and tucked away. Carefully, earnestly, they read words that reflect every aspect of who they are and will choose to be for one another, day in and day out, forever.
Angela and Ashton shared a few songs that define their love which includes “I Want You” by Marvin Gaye and “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green. Check out the full playlist on Spotify.