Senè and DeAngelo had been friends for five years before they started dating. Senè wasn’t interested until she spent more time with DeAngelo while they worked on a church play together in December 2013. DeAngelo was the director and asked Senè to be involved. Before committing, she told him he would need to give her rides to and from rehearsals.
From the few times they had hung out before, Senè knew he just wasn’t her type for multiple reasons—he was too reserved and didn’t talk much, and he once fell asleep on her when he had her over for dinner—but throughout that month of talking in the car, they became closer, discovering many coincidences—like DeAngelo’s sister-in-law was Senè’s preschool teacher, and they have family in the same Midwest town.
Just as their connection grew, so did feelings of love. During one of these mini-date car rides, Senè and DeAngelo were getting ready to say goodbye for the night. “Instead of saying my usual goodnight, I accidentally blurted out, ‘I love you!’” he says. “I tried to catch it when I realized it was coming out of my mouth, so it came out more like, ‘I love youuuuuuu.’” She laughed and could see he was feeling both embarrassed and shocked. She responded, saying “It’s OK. I love you too.”
“I drove home thinking, boy I really do love this woman. She feels like the one,” he says. After a month of dating, DeAngelo reached out to Senè’s father to express his intentions of planning to marry Senè. In spring of 2015, he proposed in an extravagant scavenger hunt that took her all through their house, their neighborhood and back to the house again.
“All of the clues were little things I didn’t think DeAngelo remembered about when we first started dating,” Senè says. And though the hunt did include one practical joke (an empty ring box!), DeAngelo asked Senè if she’d “go steady with him forever.” Senè fell to the ground laughing and crying at the same time. And her 11-year-old son was recording the entire thing!
The couple quickly started planning, deciding to tie the knot in just three months. They picked Studio 817 in downtown Sacramento for the ceremony and reception. Fortunately, Senè was able to delegate many tasks to their venue planner.
The wedding was elegant, modern and chic—perfectly fitting the couple’s personalities. They both felt a mix of nerves, excitement and anticipation, but also relief that the day that brought so much stress for the last three months had finally arrived. They also felt lucky to share the big day with their kids.
“I remember hearing the entire room gasp as I walked through the door and down the aisle, but I was mostly focused on DeAngelo,” she recalls. For both of them, it almost felt as if no one was there. “The one thing we remember most is just looking at each other and laughing as if no one else was in the room,” she says. After all that time, they still only had eyes for each other.
—Kourtney Jason
