OUR STORY
The fateful day was April of 2015, and neither of us were too concerned about schoolwork to pass up an invitation from Weston Bowden to meet for Mexican martinis at Trudy’s (RIP). Over drinks, we talked about sports and school, especially connecting on our mutual love of traveling. We even put together that we’d crossed paths in several countries in Europe the past summer while studying abroad, without ever having a formal introduction to each other! Over the remainder of that semester, we found an impressive number of coincidental reasons to spend time together as we quickly became friends.
That summer we parted ways and embarked on our own separate adventures — Sam to Asia and Madison to South America. But as soon as college football season began, we reconnected over shared stories from our summer adventures abroad and our mutual love for the Texas Longhorns.
Spring of 2016 we went on our first official date as a couple to Perla’s on South Congress. Sam cleverly suggested sharing a seafood tower, which happens to be Madison’s ideal dinner, and she was so impressed by the big fancy date night Sam had planned. Come the end of May 2016, Sam told his parents about our new relationship on their drive to Austin for UT graduation, where he met the McGlamery family at Maddy’s graduation that weekend. This came as a happy surprise to BT and Kay, especially given Madison had been in attendance as “just a friend” at their annual crawfish boil a few months earlier.
The following summer, we spent a few weeks together in Europe traveling to Italy and Norway. Those weeks are still some of our most treasured memories together. We even squeezed in an impromptu trip to Paris (Sam’s idea) where we exchanged our first “I love you’s” (Madison went first).
That fall, Madison moved to New York City to start her career and we made the decision to continue dating, despite the distance between Houston and New York. We would meticulously plan our schedules to squeeze as much extra time out of our cherished long weekends together. We had the best time eating and drinking our way through New York together on the weekends Sam came to visit, including the first trip he made up to visit Maddy as a complete surprise showing up on her doorstep unannounced! Or on his second trip to visit, where he won a bet and got to force Madison to take the world's most touristy photo...
Long distance dating was tough, but we both grew personally and professionally over the next few years and continued to travel all over the US and world — sometimes together and sometimes apart. Let’s not forget that time Sam went to the Moscow World Cup without Maddy, who only loved playing soccer her whole life since the time she was 4 years old!
On October 4, 2019, Sam moved up to join Madison in NYC in our first apartment together on East 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan. We spent our first fall, our absolute favorite season in New York, exploring new restaurants and bars and going on long walks in Central Park. Sam survived his first winter in the city, getting as lucky as a Texan can get with only a smidge of snow. Little did we know that the following spring we would be spending A LOT of time together as we became quarantine buddies for the better part of a year. Did we mention that this apartment was a 600 square foot studio?
THE PROPOSAL
On a Wednesday night in July 2020, we planned to have a final “date night” in the city before heading off to the west coast for the month of August. As the foodies (we pretend) we are, we selected one of our very favorite West Village Italian spots, I Sodi, where we had a romantic outdoor dinner. After dinner, Sam took Madison up to the rooftop of our building and got down on one knee overlooking the Empire State Building and the New York skyline -- she said YES and now here we are!
A few days after the big event, we headed off to Sonoma for a month-long stay and vacation, where we had the very best time celebrating our engagement and Sam’s birthday. We feel so fortunate to have been joined in CA by members from both of our families and so many of our friends for weekends filled with wine tastings and outdoor adventures.
We are so excited for our wedding day and can’t wait to spend it surrounded by our family and friends who have loved and supported us to this point in our lives.
