Nearlyweds: Courtney Abrahams & Johnathan Schwemler

Photography: Mirror Form Photography (mirrorformphoto.com)

Tell us your story!: “John and I met like any traditional millennial couple of 2016, online! Our first date was going to be at a Kitchener Rangers game, except I messed up the dates and it was actually an away game – oops! Tim Hortons would have to do. We hit it off right away, despite being predisposed enemies- the trades guy and the engineer! We started dating, and eventually moved in together once John was released from the military. We spent a lot of time at the racetrack, or just going on random road trips!

One road trip in particular, was especially memorable… Nashville! You see, there was a song, you may have heard it ‘Greatest Love Story’ by Lanco. This song may not describe our dating history, but we loved it enough that whenever the song came on, we would stop what we were doing, and dance to it. So naturally, a road trip to Nashville to see Lanco play, made sense! I was quite surprised when we were dancing in a bar full of people to this song live when the lyric came on “And then he got down on one knee” and John proposed! What a perfect proposal!

When we got back, we were living in a condo at the time and trying to plan what we wanted for our wedding. Driving down the road, discussing all the things we wanted and didn’t want, but still not really having an idea, there was a sign… a literal sign, advertising pig roasts. YES! That was it… we wanted a pig roast.

We then spent the next year being totally distracted from wedding planning, because we drove past the perfect house, which we proceeded to purchase and start working on right away. This is where it all started to come together, we decided we wanted a big pig roast in our backyard, with all of our friends and family! We picked the date, September 12, 2020!

Everything seemed to be coming into place, all of our vendors were booked, we had the perfect photographer and took some amazing engagement photos, the yard at our house was really looking good, and I found the perfect dress!

Then…COVID-19 showed up to the party, uninvited, of course. It started by postponing my bridal shower, and then our bachelor & bachelorette parties. By the time May rolled around, it was obvious that we had to postpone our wedding. Our goal was to have a big celebration with our friends and family, and the thought that we would have to potentially reduce numbers, or put undue stress onto the people we loved most, didn’t make sense, so we made the difficult but necessary decision to push our wedding back to August 28, 2021.

We were so fortunate with amazing support from our vendors, especially our photographer – Mirror Form Photography, who agreed to do a socially distanced photoshoot to announce the change of date.

The amount of love and support we received from our friends and family just proves that we made the right decision for us and that we have surrounded ourselves with amazing people. At the end of the day, we are thankful for each other, our health, and the health of our friends and family! We look forward to an awesome pig roast, just next year instead 😉 ” – C&J