# Picture A Love Like This (Guests: Kareem & Sandy Virgo)

An episode of [Dear Future Wifey](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506095537), 12 Nov 2025, 1 h 54 min.

Audio: https://prfx.byspotify.com/e/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/78a347aa-3282-4ac5-837c-a72300032082/293692a5-5b4e-44f3-89a3-b172011fe37c/6f0b19e7-c6da-4ffd-bcbb-b39300ae2e52/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ae4e871a-36ca-4d76-83c3-b172011fe393

Dive into an intimate conversation with wedding photographers Kareem and Sandy Virgo as they share their journey from college sweethearts to successful business partners. This candid discussion reveals how they overcame age differences, built a thriving photography business during COVID, and navigated the emotional complexities of fertility struggles and pregnancy loss. The Virgos open up about the delicate balance of working together as husband and wife, how they've shot over a thousand weddings, and the profound spiritual growth they've experienced along the way. Their story beautifully illustrates how vulnerability, resilience, and faith can transform both personal relationships and professional endeavors. ## Timestamps: - 8:30 - How Kareem and Sandy met in college despite their 5-year age gap - 23:45 - Transitioning from accounting careers to wedding photography - 37:20 - How they built their business during COVID with virtual photoshoots - 49:15 - Their fertility journey and experience with IVF - 1:05:30 - Navigating pregnancy loss and the different ways men and women process grief - 1:25:40 - The importance of men expressing vulnerability and emotion ## Key Takeaways: - Success in both marriage and business requires recognizing and valuing each partner's unique strengths - Sometimes what appears to be an obstacle (like COVID) can become your greatest opportunity for innovation - Fertility struggles affect both partners, though often in different ways - Men need permission and space to express vulnerability and process grief - Faith can provide strength during life's most challenging moments Want to hear more stories of couples who've built legacies together while navigating life's challenges? Listen to this powerful conversation that will inspire you to approach your own relationships with greater intention and compassion. 📸 CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST https://www.instagram.com/photosbyreem https://www.instagram.com/thesandyvirgo PRE-ORDER LATERRAS R. WHITFIELD'S "STUDENT OF LOVE" https://a.co/d/bx0E1iv WANNA SEE BEHIND-THE-SCENES FOOTAGE? JOIN MY PATREON https://www.Patreon.com/laterrasrwhitfield SIGN UP FOR THE MAILING LIST https://bit.ly/LRWconnection PURCHASE "YOU (Dear Future Wifey)" Theme Song http://itunes.apple.com/album/id/1729993404 👑 SUPPORT OUR CAUSE Donate to Kingdom Royale: Empowering foster kids to become royalty: https://www.KingdomRoyale.com 👕 MERCH https://www.DearFutureWifey.com SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A REVIEW Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DearFutureWifey?sub_confirmation=1 🍏 Apple Podcast: bit.ly/4og8tOn 🎧 Spotify: https://bit.ly/4odgHqx FOLLOW US 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearfuturewifeypodcast | https://www.instagram.com/laterrasrwhitfield 📘 Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/DearFutureWifey 🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfwifeypodcast Hashtag: #dearfuturewifey #dearfuturewife #laterraswhitfield #Podcast #PodcastShow #ViralPodcast #YouTubePodcast #TalkShow #InterviewShow #RelationshipAdvice #Relationshipadvice #Datingtips #communicationskills #lovestatus #love #christianity #marriage #marriagevideo #dear #dating 📸 CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST https://www.instagram.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ PRE-ORDER LATERRAS R. WHITFIELD'S "STUDENT OF LOVE" https://a.co/d/bx0E1iv WANNA SEE BEHIND-THE-SCENES FOOTAGE? JOIN MY PATREON https://www.Patreon.com/laterrasrwhitfield SIGN UP FOR THE MAILING LIST https://bit.ly/LRWconnection PURCHASE "YOU (Dear Future Wifey)" Theme Song http://itunes.apple.com/album/id/1729993404 👑 SUPPORT OUR CAUSE Donate to Kingdom Royale: Empowering foster kids to become royalty: https://www.KingdomRoyale.com 👕 MERCH https://www.DearFutureWifey.com FOLLOW US 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearfuturewifeypodcast | https://www.instagram.com/laterrasrwhitfield 📘 Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/DearFutureWifey 🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfwifeypodcast Hashtag: #dearfuturewifey #dearfuturewife…

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Did y'all have conversations around kids.
[0:02] Speaker 2: We wanted kids immediately.
[0:04] Speaker 3: We tried for three and a half years, almost four years,
[0:06] Speaker 3: and I think I put a lot of strust on
[0:08] Speaker 3: myself for it. We went through IVF to have our son,
[0:10] Speaker 3: and we got pregnant naturally. During that process, we learned
[0:16] Speaker 3: about God's timing a lot. I think that was one
[0:17] Speaker 3: of the things in our marriage, our wedding, our baby,
[0:20] Speaker 3: our house, the final minute, a miracle just comes through.
[0:25] Speaker 3: As I get older, I realized, you don't.
[0:27] Speaker 2: Know what people go through.
[0:28] Speaker 3: We just recently experienced a loss, a pregnancy loss, and
[0:31] Speaker 3: it was like when you called reim that got me
[0:33] Speaker 3: out of bed to know that God is still alive and.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Well and all right, let's gonna did this, but like you.
[0:43] Speaker 1: Don't know, we did enough.
[0:44] Speaker 4: Yeah we're here now are you good?
[0:46] Speaker 1: You're good? Yeah?
[0:47] Speaker 5: Welcome to Dear Future Wifey podcast, My Homebie Kreeb and
[0:50] Speaker 5: Sandy Virgo.
[0:51] Speaker 1: Let me go back, hot, y'all me So we met
[0:53] Speaker 1: in college.
[0:54] Speaker 6: She came back as an alumni and I was like, Okay,
[0:57] Speaker 6: who's that in the blue cardigan.
[0:59] Speaker 1: They were like, oh, yeah, that's Sandy, she's an alumni.
[1:01] Speaker 1: I don't worry about that. I said, what that guy
[1:03] Speaker 1: do with me? Okay? Too? Over you right too? Oh?
[1:05] Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, you know I like him season two thirty.
[1:08] Speaker 2: And then I found out his age and that was
[1:11] Speaker 2: a no for me.
[1:12] Speaker 4: What's difference?
[1:13] Speaker 2: It's five years?
[1:14] Speaker 5: Okay, so at that time that you say you would
[1:16] Speaker 5: never date a guy younger than you period.
[1:19] Speaker 3: No, but we were He was twenty and I was
[1:22] Speaker 3: twenty five.
[1:23] Speaker 5: Most women feel like they're going to get married younger
[1:26] Speaker 5: or whatnot. Where we've seen a trend where a lot
[1:28] Speaker 5: of women don't a lot of women like, no, I'm
[1:30] Speaker 5: focused on career at that age. Where were you focused
[1:33] Speaker 5: on career or family?
[1:34] Speaker 3: Yes, on my career and I just wanted to be
[1:39] Speaker 3: in a committed relationship.
[1:40] Speaker 6: It's crazy that we get to shoot weddings because every
[1:42] Speaker 6: single wedding that we shoot we get to just learn
[1:45] Speaker 6: something more.
[1:45] Speaker 4: How many way did you think y'all shot?
[1:47] Speaker 1: Definitely over one thousand?
[1:48] Speaker 2: Really, no, definitely way more than.
[1:50] Speaker 1: Actun this year a little yeah, that's just being modest. Yeah,
[1:52] Speaker 1: this year long, we've had over eighty.
[1:55] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:55] Speaker 1: Did y'all have conversations around kids?
[1:58] Speaker 5: The Dear Future WIFEI podcast had Global Impact from Texas.
[2:02] Speaker 3: I have been on this journey of healing and self discovery,
[2:05] Speaker 3: and this podcast has been a vital part of my process.
[2:09] Speaker 3: God's establishing through you a legacy, a display of freedom,
[2:14] Speaker 3: founding authentic spirituality California.
[2:18] Speaker 1: I learned so much as a single man through your podcast,
[2:21] Speaker 1: and continue to learn so much as now a married
[2:25] Speaker 1: man Nigeria. This is just therapy for me.
[2:28] Speaker 3: You know, I've been healed, I've been strengthen in my
[2:31] Speaker 3: convictions on the Stoop to do single hoopitsa Amsterdam way
[2:35] Speaker 3: that you've shown us how it is possible for a.
[2:38] Speaker 1: Man to be as intentional as you are New Jersey.
[2:43] Speaker 2: I appreciate your vulnerability.
[2:45] Speaker 3: I appreciate just being able to see that there is
[2:48] Speaker 3: life after divorce.
[2:49] Speaker 1: To New York.
[2:50] Speaker 3: I am a single woman, so these episodes really give
[2:53] Speaker 3: me hope and courage that God does have a husband
[2:56] Speaker 3: for me.
[2:57] Speaker 5: Discover, uncover and recover love. I'm Laterra Sar Whitfield and
[3:01] Speaker 5: this is season ten of the Dear Future Wifie Podcast.
[3:06] Speaker 5: Welcome to a Dear Future Wifie Podcast. I'm your host,
[3:09] Speaker 5: La Terra Sar Whitfield. Listen, are you still shacking up
[3:11] Speaker 5: with us. If you're still shacking up with us, come on,
[3:13] Speaker 5: can we get a commitment? Hit that subscription button and subscribe.
[3:16] Speaker 5: Make sure you're turning on your notification bell so you'll
[3:19] Speaker 5: be notified about upcoming episodes.
[3:22] Speaker 4: Listen.
[3:23] Speaker 5: A lot of y'all have been inquiring about the book
[3:26] Speaker 5: Student of Love is going to be releasing a couple
[3:28] Speaker 5: of months, and so I want y'all to make sure
[3:31] Speaker 5: that you as matter of fact, just watch this promo
[3:34] Speaker 5: video right now.
[3:36] Speaker 1: I was married, cheated, flown out of marriage.
[3:40] Speaker 5: These eyes have seen the pain of failure, but also
[3:45] Speaker 5: the possibility of redemption. These gears have heard the lies
[3:50] Speaker 5: you'll never change, but they've also caught the whisper of truth.
[3:55] Speaker 5: But Terras, you can learn love on the level.
[3:58] Speaker 1: You've never known.
[4:00] Speaker 5: This finger once carried a valve I wasn't ready to honor.
[4:05] Speaker 5: Today is empty, but it's unashamed. It's waiting under covenant.
[4:11] Speaker 5: I'll protect with wisdom.
[4:13] Speaker 1: I'm no expert.
[4:15] Speaker 4: I'm just a fellow student.
[4:17] Speaker 5: I've sat in Love's classroom, even spend time and attention.
[4:21] Speaker 1: But now I live with intention.
[4:24] Speaker 5: That's why I wrote Student of Love, because learning love
[4:27] Speaker 5: never ends. Sitting next to me and cheat off of
[4:31] Speaker 5: my paper. Cheat Tony can show you a better word.
[4:36] Speaker 1: Let's just cut to the chase.
[4:37] Speaker 5: Pre order this book and start the journey in becoming
[4:41] Speaker 5: a true student of love.
[4:43] Speaker 1: Class it's now in session.
[4:52] Speaker 5: So this book was birth out of my journey as
[4:56] Speaker 5: I discover, uncover and recover of love. And I thank
[4:59] Speaker 5: God so much for doctor Gary Chapman. Y'all know him
[5:04] Speaker 5: the right of the five love languages. He saw the
[5:07] Speaker 5: value in the book where he did the forward to
[5:09] Speaker 5: the book, and so I never ever ever take God's
[5:13] Speaker 5: kindness and mercy for granted that his book so twenty
[5:17] Speaker 5: million copies, been around for thirty years, and so I
[5:21] Speaker 5: just thank God that when he read this book he said, Okay.
[5:23] Speaker 4: I don't put my name on just anything.
[5:25] Speaker 5: I want to put my name on this book because
[5:27] Speaker 5: I believe that this book is going to change the world.
[5:30] Speaker 5: So make sure that you pre order this book. Some
[5:32] Speaker 5: of y'all may be like, well, why can't I just
[5:34] Speaker 5: wait when the book comes out. Well, buying the book
[5:37] Speaker 5: early let's not only the publisher know that this book
[5:40] Speaker 5: is highly anticipated, but also all the outlets, the walmarts,
[5:45] Speaker 5: the big box stores say okay, let's go ahead and
[5:48] Speaker 5: pre order a lot of these books because we know
[5:50] Speaker 5: they're going to be flying off the shelves. So go
[5:52] Speaker 5: ahead get the book. Thank y'all in advance for those
[5:55] Speaker 5: who have already ordered the book. Today's episode is very
[5:59] Speaker 5: near and dear to me because I some of y'all
[6:04] Speaker 5: may know that I started out doing wedding photography, uh,
[6:09] Speaker 5: and I loved it. I loved being a part of
[6:12] Speaker 5: people's special day, capturing those moments that will live for
[6:15] Speaker 5: a lifetime. And this couple, this couple's gonna also be
[6:19] Speaker 5: shooting the photography for our wedding video and photography as
[6:24] Speaker 5: a matter of fact, and so I believe that they're
[6:27] Speaker 5: going to hold a sacred place in my life for
[6:29] Speaker 5: years to come. So, without further ado, welcome to a
[6:32] Speaker 5: dear Future Wifie podcast. My homie Kareem and Sandy Virgo
[6:36] Speaker 5: are on the yellow couch. Yes, sir, I am so
[6:42] Speaker 5: did you know about their future wifey podcasts prior to
[6:44] Speaker 5: be inviting y'all?
[6:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, we did.
[6:46] Speaker 5: What did you know about what is? Did you only
[6:48] Speaker 5: know about the wig falling off somebody's head?
[6:50] Speaker 3: I'm not going I was a great first oppression, though,
[6:54] Speaker 3: for us. Why, it's just well, first of all, the
[6:58] Speaker 3: young lady with me, she's hilarious. We love everything that
[7:03] Speaker 3: she does. She's so funny. So when that happened, when
[7:05] Speaker 3: we saw that clip mainly from her, and it just
[7:09] Speaker 3: it was just so funny. I just kept watching it,
[7:11] Speaker 3: sharing it, and then it made me want to know
[7:13] Speaker 3: more about the podcast, of course, and I see your
[7:16] Speaker 3: face all the time honestly on my feed and just
[7:20] Speaker 3: the amazing couples that you've had on here, the amazing stories.
[7:23] Speaker 3: So even when you brought this to Kareem and he
[7:27] Speaker 3: told me.
[7:27] Speaker 2: About it, I didn't believe it.
[7:28] Speaker 1: I didn't believe it.
[7:30] Speaker 4: So I just.
[7:30] Speaker 5: Said, if your wig fell off, would you allow me
[7:33] Speaker 5: to post it?
[7:35] Speaker 3: You know what?
[7:37] Speaker 4: Said? Yeah?
[7:38] Speaker 3: Probably at first, no, but you know, it's it's a
[7:41] Speaker 3: real thing. It's it happens that hasn't happened to me yet,
[7:45] Speaker 3: and this is not a wig a wig, So I
[7:48] Speaker 3: made sure that didn't happen today.
[7:50] Speaker 4: Okay, all right, all right?
[7:52] Speaker 5: And so that's what the podcast about, is being transparent
[7:55] Speaker 5: and vulnerable, and so I didn't expect that to happen,
[7:58] Speaker 5: and when it did, I was like, okay, and I
[8:02] Speaker 5: authentically laughed from my soul. You understand me, I laughed
[8:05] Speaker 5: from the pit of my soul. Let me ask you this.
[8:08] Speaker 5: How long have y'all been married?
[8:11] Speaker 1: Seven years? Next month?
[8:13] Speaker 5: Next month, October the fourteenth, will make it seven years now?
[8:19] Speaker 5: They say, Statistics show and I did a ted talk about.
[8:23] Speaker 4: This is around the seven year mark.
[8:25] Speaker 5: Couples have a tendency to regret their decisions of marriage.
[8:29] Speaker 4: It's called the seven year itch. Have y'all experienced that?
[8:34] Speaker 3: I will say no, no, but I can't.
[8:37] Speaker 5: Kreen was waiting for you to ask. I was like,
[8:40] Speaker 5: I would say, anyway you say no, He said.
[8:41] Speaker 6: No, tell them for whatever you say that it.
[8:46] Speaker 3: Might pause and wait for each other to twer, but
[8:49] Speaker 3: I would say, I understand why couples may have a
[8:53] Speaker 3: seven year itch. Thankfully, No, definitely on my end, no,
[8:58] Speaker 3: because I married my best friend and honestly, from the
[9:02] Speaker 3: day we said, I do just We've been tested a
[9:06] Speaker 3: lot since the beginning, and we just seem to overcome
[9:09] Speaker 3: every test that's good and God is just sees this
[9:14] Speaker 3: amazed me every day in this marriage, and we just
[9:17] Speaker 3: look forward to so many things that just keeps happening
[9:21] Speaker 3: in our marriage.
[9:22] Speaker 5: At the beginning, what is your journey been like when
[9:26] Speaker 5: you say seven years, When you look back over what
[9:29] Speaker 5: God did, what comes to mind?
[9:32] Speaker 1: Man?
[9:33] Speaker 6: I mean, I always knew I wanted to be married.
[9:36] Speaker 6: So when people say, you know, seven years, Mark, make
[9:40] Speaker 6: sure you know you be careful because seven years is
[9:42] Speaker 6: going to be a little bit tough.
[9:44] Speaker 1: I'm like, really, I mean, there's really no.
[9:46] Speaker 6: Difference between being married and unmarried because this is the
[9:52] Speaker 6: person that I knew I wanted.
[9:53] Speaker 1: You knew, So it's not because it's not going.
[9:55] Speaker 6: To make any difference because I knew I wanted her,
[9:57] Speaker 6: So I don't think it made anything.
[10:00] Speaker 5: So let me ask you this. How long did y'all
[10:02] Speaker 5: date before you knew that she was the one?
[10:05] Speaker 1: How long we did it? Uh? Two years?
[10:08] Speaker 3: We dated for two and a half years.
[10:12] Speaker 6: Yeah, ask him again, Sam, ask him again, because you
[10:15] Speaker 6: didn't hear the question right right. You kind of just know,
[10:21] Speaker 6: you know, first date, second.
[10:22] Speaker 5: Date, five months later, When did you feel like, Oh,
[10:26] Speaker 5: she is my forever. She's not like any other girl
[10:28] Speaker 5: that I've dated that it has an expiration date. This
[10:31] Speaker 5: is the woman that I can see myself doing life with. Mmmm.
[10:36] Speaker 6: Like I said, you you kind of just you really
[10:39] Speaker 6: just know that that that she's the one, because nothing
[10:45] Speaker 6: else really matters at that point.
[10:47] Speaker 4: What point? First date, second day, first month.
[10:50] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Like, it's like, it's like,
[10:52] Speaker 1: how like at what point?
[10:55] Speaker 4: So let me go back, how y'all meet?
[10:57] Speaker 1: Okay, let's let's let's backtrack.
[10:58] Speaker 6: We're going back. Okay, let's backtrack. So we met in college.
[11:03] Speaker 6: I was an undergrad. She was an alumni, and I
[11:07] Speaker 6: was going through a fraternity process at the time. And
[11:12] Speaker 6: she came back as an alumni to visit and and
[11:15] Speaker 6: I was like, Okay, who's that in the blue cardigan?
[11:19] Speaker 6: They were like, oh, yeah, that's Sandy. She's an alumni.
[11:21] Speaker 6: I don't worry about that. I said, what that guy
[11:23] Speaker 6: do with me? I don'd you to? I'm like, nah,
[11:26] Speaker 6: you know, I like him, season I said, so, So
[11:31] Speaker 6: I already had my mind set on on her. She
[11:35] Speaker 6: probably didn't really understand that, but I already kind of
[11:37] Speaker 6: already had my mindset on her. And it wasn't until
[11:40] Speaker 6: an alumni event a couple of weeks later and I
[11:44] Speaker 6: saw her again and I was like, oh, did she
[11:47] Speaker 6: go again?
[11:48] Speaker 1: See must have been meant to be. So the first
[11:50] Speaker 1: time you didn't go approach it. No, you're just in quiet.
[11:53] Speaker 3: So I so because this was a this was a
[11:56] Speaker 3: we were in a business fraternity, so I was invited
[11:59] Speaker 3: to come. It was a fashion show event. At the time,
[12:01] Speaker 3: I was modeling doing a little so they wanted, you know,
[12:04] Speaker 3: alumni to be there. So I had seen a picture
[12:06] Speaker 3: of him and I was like, Oh, who's this guy?
[12:09] Speaker 3: They were like, word on the street was that he
[12:11] Speaker 3: was very professional. He was like he was there was
[12:16] Speaker 3: people talking about him. So I approached him just as
[12:19] Speaker 3: I approached all the other people that.
[12:20] Speaker 4: Was talking about positive positive.
[12:22] Speaker 1: Yes.
[12:23] Speaker 2: So because he was going through a process, he couldn't.
[12:27] Speaker 3: Really talk to you, talk to me. He kind of
[12:29] Speaker 3: kept it. He called me miss Isaac, that was my
[12:32] Speaker 3: name at the time, and I was like, oh, I
[12:36] Speaker 3: was like, oh, he too professional, he too serious. And
[12:40] Speaker 3: then I found out his age and that was a
[12:43] Speaker 3: note for me.
[12:43] Speaker 4: What difference.
[12:44] Speaker 2: It's five years?
[12:45] Speaker 4: Okay, So at.
[12:46] Speaker 1: That time, did you say you would never date a
[12:48] Speaker 1: guy younger than you period?
[12:50] Speaker 3: No, but we were He was twenty and I was
[12:53] Speaker 3: twenty five, So what was the.
[12:55] Speaker 5: Age in your mind? Did you even have that in
[12:57] Speaker 5: your mind?
[12:57] Speaker 3: So, just by people that I dated prior they were
[13:00] Speaker 3: just older. I think that's just normal for women to
[13:03] Speaker 3: stay you know, older, and I think I had already graduated.
[13:07] Speaker 2: He I don't know, fresh sophomore. I don't even know
[13:09] Speaker 2: what he was.
[13:09] Speaker 1: I was something.
[13:11] Speaker 3: He appeared to be very professional and older and mature,
[13:15] Speaker 3: and I found out later that that really was who
[13:17] Speaker 3: he was, and that just kind of put him in
[13:19] Speaker 3: the I was like, no, we're going to be friends.
[13:22] Speaker 3: He needs to have experiences, he needs to you know,
[13:25] Speaker 3: go through life, and I just don't think I wanted
[13:27] Speaker 3: to deal with that.
[13:28] Speaker 2: So we were just friends for a whole year before.
[13:31] Speaker 5: Oh so yeah, yeah, like it was a long time.
[13:34] Speaker 5: He wore your day on her. We were just friends.
[13:37] Speaker 4: For a year.
[13:41] Speaker 2: It was honestly me.
[13:42] Speaker 3: I was I remember googling older with like Gabriel Union
[13:46] Speaker 3: doing with all these different couples, and I.
[13:47] Speaker 1: Was trying to find some trying to put together we're.
[13:51] Speaker 3: The best friends. Every every night. I just he was
[13:54] Speaker 3: the person I wanted to wake up talking to, go
[13:56] Speaker 3: to sleeps, and the you know talk to before I
[13:59] Speaker 3: went to sleep. And I just realized that age was
[14:02] Speaker 3: a number, just a number, especially him, and especially as
[14:05] Speaker 3: we get older now.
[14:06] Speaker 1: Our age is just don't even matter flip.
[14:10] Speaker 2: Because now I'm his age.
[14:11] Speaker 1: He's right, Yeah, yeah, people people think. People think she's
[14:14] Speaker 1: thirty one, and I'm because I didn't know that.
[14:16] Speaker 5: I didn't know that she was older than you. That's
[14:18] Speaker 5: the crazy thing about it all. So they look at
[14:20] Speaker 5: this then, and so y'all dated while y'all were just friends.
[14:24] Speaker 5: Were y'all dating other people?
[14:26] Speaker 1: Yes?
[14:27] Speaker 3: I was?
[14:27] Speaker 5: And then how did you feel when you heard her
[14:29] Speaker 5: talk about other guys?
[14:30] Speaker 1: I was like, I mean, what that got to do
[14:32] Speaker 1: with me?
[14:32] Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, Like, I understand you're going
[14:35] Speaker 6: through your dating phase. I understand I ain't nothing serious.
[14:38] Speaker 1: And were you dating other people at the time? What's
[14:41] Speaker 1: I I was?
[14:43] Speaker 5: You know, look, yeah she wanted to say her name, but.
[14:47] Speaker 3: You know, she's like, but honestly, there was no We
[14:52] Speaker 3: were just friends and I and I definitely started to
[14:56] Speaker 3: build feelings, but I wasn't going to I had to
[14:59] Speaker 3: stick to my plan at the time.
[15:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, he was too young. He needed to go through life.
[15:04] Speaker 3: And I learned so much from him, honestly, even in
[15:06] Speaker 3: our twenties, and he just was so mature, so many
[15:09] Speaker 3: had so many life experiences that I didn't have and
[15:12] Speaker 3: vice versa. I just think we just molded perfectly.
[15:15] Speaker 6: I think I kind of loved that she that she
[15:18] Speaker 6: thought I was so young that she couldn't take me serious,
[15:21] Speaker 6: because it gave me something to prove that part. And
[15:24] Speaker 6: I was like, you know what, okay, but a number
[15:27] Speaker 6: Yeah yep.
[15:28] Speaker 5: So so so even while you got would you say
[15:32] Speaker 5: that he was friend zoned or there was still some
[15:34] Speaker 5: little hope?
[15:35] Speaker 1: No? Could you a little jealous?
[15:37] Speaker 4: You said you guys was catching feelings?
[15:39] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[15:40] Speaker 5: I think.
[15:42] Speaker 3: For sure. I think there's it's just natural if you
[15:45] Speaker 3: become friends with somebody, they make you laugh and then
[15:48] Speaker 3: you see their character, the type of he was a
[15:51] Speaker 3: good person, always had a good heart, kind heart. We
[15:56] Speaker 3: weren't on the same page spiritually, honestly, and I don't
[15:59] Speaker 3: think we I even talked to him, talk to him
[16:02] Speaker 3: spiritually at all about God and things like like where
[16:05] Speaker 3: I stud at that point. It wasn't until we got
[16:08] Speaker 3: into a relationship, and maybe like a year in I
[16:11] Speaker 3: was like, you.
[16:12] Speaker 1: A Christian.
[16:15] Speaker 4: Relationship with you?
[16:16] Speaker 1: What do you believe in? Karan? What was you believing
[16:18] Speaker 1: in at the time. I think she thought that I
[16:20] Speaker 1: was that I I don't think she knew what I
[16:23] Speaker 1: believe in.
[16:23] Speaker 5: That you know, you will never out loud with your faith, right,
[16:27] Speaker 5: It's just kind of like what did you believe in
[16:29] Speaker 5: at the time?
[16:30] Speaker 1: Right, No, I was, I was. I was a Christian.
[16:33] Speaker 6: I mean still am, but like right, it was crazy,
[16:36] Speaker 6: but still still am Christian. But I don't think she
[16:39] Speaker 6: really understood it through because we didn't have that type
[16:42] Speaker 6: of relationship.
[16:43] Speaker 2: You didn't go to church, you didn't have the church.
[16:46] Speaker 6: It was more so like, uh more, I think it
[16:48] Speaker 6: was more so just a friendship and a just like
[16:51] Speaker 6: a lust type situation, you know what I'm saying.
[16:53] Speaker 1: It was. It wasn't like what are you actually believe in?
[16:55] Speaker 1: What is your faith? Belief? You know, stuff like that.
[16:57] Speaker 4: So you said a lust of situation.
[17:01] Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, y'all friends with benefits? No, No, not.
[17:10] Speaker 3: Really, no, No, this was I think when we started
[17:13] Speaker 3: it just was like we just had attraction for each other.
[17:16] Speaker 3: And because I didn't see him in that light yet,
[17:19] Speaker 3: I know I liked him, I just didn't envision him
[17:22] Speaker 3: as my husband at that point until we got into
[17:25] Speaker 3: a serious relationship and we started having those conversations.
[17:28] Speaker 5: So you as you was focused on a husband during
[17:30] Speaker 5: that time in twenty five, you were like, I want
[17:31] Speaker 5: to be married.
[17:32] Speaker 3: Because I was like about to get my master's degree.
[17:37] Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess it goes away.
[17:39] Speaker 3: Maybe just we just are our minds are just really
[17:42] Speaker 3: fast when it comes to that. But he honestly always
[17:44] Speaker 3: wanted to be married as well.
[17:46] Speaker 1: So you're talking marriage.
[17:47] Speaker 5: You were talking marriage at twenty one. I know you
[17:49] Speaker 5: said you've always wanted to get married, but you're talking
[17:51] Speaker 5: about in college you were focused.
[17:54] Speaker 1: On marriage at some point. For sure.
[17:55] Speaker 6: I was like, you don't want it to get married.
[17:57] Speaker 6: I was like, I want to get married by twenty five. Really, yeah,
[18:00] Speaker 6: I always told.
[18:01] Speaker 2: Her yep, so y'all got way.
[18:04] Speaker 1: Twenty five, twenty five?
[18:08] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[18:08] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[18:09] Speaker 4: Did anybody tell y'all y'all get married to young?
[18:12] Speaker 2: Well?
[18:12] Speaker 1: I was older, so no, Well I mean him, Ye
[18:16] Speaker 1: think I do.
[18:16] Speaker 2: Think people everyone thinks he's older than what he was.
[18:19] Speaker 1: That's that's the thing too.
[18:20] Speaker 6: Yeah, a lot of people think I'm older than what
[18:22] Speaker 6: I am, like at whatever level. I was, high school,
[18:25] Speaker 6: middle school, whatever. So I don't think it was a
[18:28] Speaker 6: surprise to anybody.
[18:29] Speaker 5: So you're thirty two, at thirty one, thirty two, you're
[18:31] Speaker 5: thirty two years old, and so at twenty five, your
[18:34] Speaker 5: parents didn't say, come on, now, you got more life
[18:38] Speaker 5: to live.
[18:39] Speaker 4: You rushing this.
[18:41] Speaker 6: Told I mean, I told him when I was like nine,
[18:43] Speaker 6: I was like, look, I need to move out. Like yeah, y'all, y'all,
[18:48] Speaker 6: this is taking too long that.
[18:51] Speaker 3: It's one of the funniest stories I ever heard. He
[18:53] Speaker 3: was so, He's like, he packed his back to his parents.
[18:55] Speaker 3: He was out.
[18:56] Speaker 6: I packed up all my toys and my goat and
[18:59] Speaker 6: my little hot wills and all that stuff. I said, look,
[19:01] Speaker 6: I'm done, Like.
[19:02] Speaker 4: So, so, what was stressing you out? Korean?
[19:04] Speaker 5: We'll stress you out at that age that you're gonna
[19:06] Speaker 5: move out.
[19:07] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[19:07] Speaker 6: I think I was just just older mom beyond my ears.
[19:11] Speaker 1: He was done.
[19:11] Speaker 6: He was done. I was like, look, I love y'all,
[19:13] Speaker 6: but I gotta go. Yeah, hey, man, time what time
[19:17] Speaker 6: college starts? You know where you're going Korean college? I
[19:24] Speaker 6: need my masters? Like this is getting to take it
[19:26] Speaker 6: too long, he.
[19:26] Speaker 4: Said, I'm tired of this.
[19:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[19:28] Speaker 5: So they so they were used to you always being
[19:31] Speaker 5: ahead of your age, like you the level, so Mayor's
[19:34] Speaker 5: didn't shock them at all at twenty five. I think
[19:36] Speaker 5: so did anybody tell you, like, oh, he's too young,
[19:39] Speaker 5: you're marrying them too young and all that.
[19:41] Speaker 3: You know, all my friends loved him, and of course
[19:44] Speaker 3: they had the same concerns when we first met, but
[19:46] Speaker 3: once they got to know him and he he showed himself,
[19:50] Speaker 3: like very early on in his career how well he did.
[19:54] Speaker 3: So Reim studied accounting and he got into amazing internships,
[19:59] Speaker 3: had great job offers. So, even though we had that
[20:03] Speaker 3: age difference, like, he was always responsible, always had his
[20:06] Speaker 3: own place. Like I grew up Caribbean. I'm a daughter
[20:11] Speaker 3: of patient immigrants. Yeah, so I was home like my
[20:16] Speaker 3: parents always took care of me, even though I had
[20:19] Speaker 3: a lot on my dreams. I had my education, but
[20:22] Speaker 3: I was more sheltered than he was. He definitely had
[20:25] Speaker 3: more experience at being outside of the house and having
[20:28] Speaker 3: those things.
[20:30] Speaker 5: Really and so, but they welcomed him. They were just like, hey,
[20:35] Speaker 5: we put our blessings on this. Yes, yes, is there
[20:37] Speaker 5: any type of traditions that y'all have as Haitians when
[20:40] Speaker 5: you bring a person home to say that this person
[20:43] Speaker 5: is intentional to marry you.
[20:45] Speaker 3: So, so, my father had passed away already at that point,
[20:49] Speaker 3: so he never got to meet my dad. But my
[20:51] Speaker 3: mom just told her I have a boyfriend, and she
[20:55] Speaker 3: she was happy because again it was like, when am
[20:58] Speaker 3: I going to have grandkids?
[20:59] Speaker 1: Where are you going to be rested?
[21:00] Speaker 5: As soon as you say yes, yes, yes, when I
[21:03] Speaker 5: have a grand baby, Like good, look, I just told
[21:04] Speaker 5: this my boyfriend. Can we start I'm trying to get
[21:08] Speaker 5: to see if we're gonna get married. Can we just
[21:10] Speaker 5: start there when you're gonna have grandkids? Do you feel pressure?
[21:14] Speaker 5: I know you said most women feel like they're going
[21:20] Speaker 5: to get married young or whatnot. Where we've seen the
[21:22] Speaker 5: trend where a lot of women don't. A lot of
[21:24] Speaker 5: women like, no, I'm focused on career at that age
[21:27] Speaker 5: at twenty five, Where were you focused on career or family?
[21:34] Speaker 3: On my career? And I just wanted to be in
[21:39] Speaker 3: a committed relationship. I had bad experiences prior to him,
[21:43] Speaker 3: and I just didn't want to be with somebody that
[21:46] Speaker 3: I knew wasn't going to be serious. I wanted whoever
[21:48] Speaker 3: I was going to meet around that time to be
[21:50] Speaker 3: the one.
[21:51] Speaker 1: What about you, ring, I didn't have bad experiences. I
[21:56] Speaker 1: was just I was just in the streets. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[22:01] Speaker 1: I was.
[22:01] Speaker 6: I was just I didn't have I think your relationships
[22:05] Speaker 6: were more serious than mine were. Yeah, so I think
[22:09] Speaker 6: that allowed you to feel like, Okay, I need to
[22:13] Speaker 6: be you know, committed to someone who who really understands
[22:16] Speaker 6: what I have going on. On the flip side, I
[22:19] Speaker 6: think I was just dealing with stuff that I knew
[22:21] Speaker 6: that I didn't want to have, you know, and because
[22:25] Speaker 6: of that, I knew that if I came across the
[22:27] Speaker 6: right person, this is what I wanted. And because meeting Sandy,
[22:32] Speaker 6: I knew right out the bad that she was just
[22:35] Speaker 6: the one because everyone else didn't take it serious.
[22:39] Speaker 5: So I'm about to ask you, so, do you think
[22:41] Speaker 5: subconsciously you were comparing other girls that you were meeting
[22:44] Speaker 5: around that time to Sandy.
[22:47] Speaker 6: I think so. I think I think, uh, in a way,
[22:50] Speaker 6: I knew Sandy before I even met her.
[22:52] Speaker 5: Exactly who you said before you even met her? Yeah,
[22:55] Speaker 5: explain step heavy now.
[22:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, it's kind of crazy.
[23:00] Speaker 6: Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think about it. Like
[23:03] Speaker 6: that's why I said streets because I don't mean streets like, oh,
[23:06] Speaker 6: I was like, I know, you know what I'm saying,
[23:08] Speaker 6: But like when I came, when I when I met
[23:12] Speaker 6: Sandy and I and I finally got to meet her.
[23:15] Speaker 6: It's like it was just a breath of fresh air,
[23:19] Speaker 6: and it just opened my eyes to what I knew
[23:21] Speaker 6: what I wanted and a wife, and what you knew.
[23:24] Speaker 4: You wanted a wife?
[23:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, hearing that, I believe it. Yeah.
[23:30] Speaker 3: And again at the time, maybe we didn't have the
[23:33] Speaker 3: best words to say, but Karam was really big on
[23:37] Speaker 3: breaking generational curses. That's good, not repeating the same mistakes
[23:42] Speaker 3: that you know he saw he went and that's why
[23:44] Speaker 3: he wanted to leave at nine years old, because I
[23:46] Speaker 3: think he just knew that he could be the change
[23:49] Speaker 3: in his family.
[23:50] Speaker 2: And he really was and.
[23:52] Speaker 3: He still is. And I think that aligned with me
[23:55] Speaker 3: so perfectly. And it wasn't until we were maybe a
[24:00] Speaker 3: year and a half and I asked him that question.
[24:01] Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I know you believe in God,
[24:03] Speaker 2: I know.
[24:05] Speaker 3: You have a good heart, but like, what's your spiritual
[24:08] Speaker 3: life like? And we made a lot of changes, Like
[24:13] Speaker 3: I want to say, a year before our we got engaged,
[24:16] Speaker 3: and I knew he was the one for sure, for
[24:18] Speaker 3: sure because I started getting like I remember I met him.
[24:22] Speaker 3: We had a great relationship, fun, good guy, very ambitious,
[24:27] Speaker 3: but spiritually I was like I I grew up in
[24:30] Speaker 3: the church I grew up, you know, I wanted a
[24:34] Speaker 3: man that was gonna speaking tongues and pray and realnecessary
[24:39] Speaker 3: isn't exactly what I pictured.
[24:41] Speaker 1: And my family didn't kind of raised me.
[24:44] Speaker 4: Here you raising church or you wasn't.
[24:46] Speaker 1: Not not necesarily, not really but that's like my grandma.
[24:50] Speaker 3: But but the experience I had, like all of those
[24:57] Speaker 3: things like that was the first time he ever witnessed
[24:59] Speaker 3: things like that, So he just was so open to
[25:03] Speaker 3: growing his faith.
[25:04] Speaker 2: And once I saw that, yeah, it was like that.
[25:07] Speaker 4: That's good and kareem, how did you?
[25:08] Speaker 1: Oh?
[25:09] Speaker 6: No, go ahead, No, I was just gonna just add on,
[25:11] Speaker 6: like you know, even though my family wasn't so strong
[25:18] Speaker 6: on that and on their faith and all that good stuff.
[25:21] Speaker 6: I think sometimes faith finds you as opposed to you finding,
[25:24] Speaker 6: you know, the faith. And that's another big point of
[25:27] Speaker 6: why I think finding Sandy was something that was meant
[25:30] Speaker 6: for me in my life because even though it wasn't
[25:33] Speaker 6: something I had in my family growing up, she introduced
[25:37] Speaker 6: that to me. And it wasn't because I didn't believe
[25:39] Speaker 6: in God or nothing like that introduced to. It's just
[25:41] Speaker 6: I was just introduced to it more from her and
[25:44] Speaker 6: that opened my eyes more so.
[25:46] Speaker 5: So, how did you feel when you saw that for
[25:49] Speaker 5: the first time, people speaking in tongues and falling all
[25:52] Speaker 5: out in the spirit. Where you like these people doing
[25:54] Speaker 5: too much? They weirdo? Or were you like I need that?
[25:57] Speaker 1: Not? Yeah, not at all? Like it was. It was.
[26:00] Speaker 6: It was something that really opened my eyes and I
[26:02] Speaker 6: was like, man, this is absolutely beautiful good you know.
[26:06] Speaker 6: And whether or not it's people doing it for show
[26:10] Speaker 6: or people really feeling convicted by the spirit, right, that's
[26:12] Speaker 6: not up to me, you know, that's up to them
[26:14] Speaker 6: and how they feel, and they if they truly feel
[26:16] Speaker 6: the Holy Spirit, that's up to them. I absolutely loved it,
[26:21] Speaker 6: and I thought it was just a great thing.
[26:23] Speaker 5: What generational curse were you wanting to break or are
[26:28] Speaker 5: breaking that you saw growing up?
[26:31] Speaker 1: I think it was our outlook of one money.
[26:37] Speaker 6: That's why I went to school for accounting and wanted
[26:40] Speaker 6: to be a CPA, you know. I wanted to have
[26:43] Speaker 6: my own practice and do taxes and all that good stuff.
[26:46] Speaker 6: But God had other plans and said, you know what,
[26:51] Speaker 6: why don't you go ahead and be a wedding photographer
[26:54] Speaker 6: that come about? You know, So I was in This
[26:58] Speaker 6: is twenty fifteen. Now, I was just about finishing my
[27:02] Speaker 6: degree in accounting and a friend of mine asked me
[27:04] Speaker 6: to come and help him take pictures at a photo shoot.
[27:07] Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, cool, no problem.
[27:09] Speaker 6: And it was just so much fun I had. I
[27:12] Speaker 6: had a great time just taking pictures with him. But
[27:15] Speaker 6: that same year, that's when me and Sandy started to talk,
[27:19] Speaker 6: started to get talking, and we got acquainted and I
[27:21] Speaker 6: was a plus one at a wedding with her.
[27:24] Speaker 3: Whoever wedding wedding twenty fifteen, twenty fifteen never went.
[27:28] Speaker 1: To and I was so he brought your homeboy to
[27:31] Speaker 1: the wedding. Yeah, we were.
[27:32] Speaker 2: We were dating at that point.
[27:33] Speaker 1: We were on it's pretty much dating. We were we
[27:36] Speaker 1: at the.
[27:36] Speaker 3: What are we wet? We met twenty We met twenty thirteen.
[27:43] Speaker 3: In twenty fourteen was when we became fishing. We were
[27:48] Speaker 3: together at least a good year and and a half
[27:50] Speaker 3: at that point. This is the beginning of twenty fifteen.
[27:53] Speaker 4: To Weddnig gets real serious.
[27:55] Speaker 2: These were mutual friends.
[27:56] Speaker 4: So like, okay, y'all vote, yeah.
[27:58] Speaker 3: We both but this was his first time ever we
[28:00] Speaker 3: at a wedding ever, and I was very familiar. I
[28:05] Speaker 3: was a bridesmade one hundred times flower girl everything. So
[28:09] Speaker 3: we're sitting at the wedding. He's like, so, why, like,
[28:12] Speaker 3: you can't I think your parents went to the courthouse, right.
[28:15] Speaker 3: I just had a very small and my parents had
[28:17] Speaker 3: a big wedding back in nineteen eighty six, so I
[28:21] Speaker 3: knew I always wanted a big wedding, but he knew
[28:23] Speaker 3: nothing about wedding. So we're sitting at this Wedding's like, okay,
[28:25] Speaker 3: so what's next?
[28:26] Speaker 1: What they about to do?
[28:27] Speaker 3: Why is there so many things that next to the reception?
[28:30] Speaker 1: And how what does this cost?
[28:31] Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm like this one might cost like ten
[28:33] Speaker 3: twelve thousand. He's like, what people spend that just to
[28:38] Speaker 3: say you my wife? I'm like, yeah, it's a thing.
[28:42] Speaker 3: So but when he got into capturing love stories, of course,
[28:47] Speaker 3: and then him self falling in love and seeing how
[28:50] Speaker 3: the wedding is more than just I love you or
[28:54] Speaker 3: it's a it's a public declaration of your love with
[28:56] Speaker 3: family and friends, he started to really like, oh no, this,
[29:01] Speaker 3: I want to do this.
[29:02] Speaker 1: It wasn't about the money at all.
[29:03] Speaker 6: It's just just seeing the photographer shooting and the amount
[29:07] Speaker 6: of pressure that is on them for that wedding day
[29:11] Speaker 6: as well. I like to capture a full day. I
[29:14] Speaker 6: was like, Okay, this is something I think I can do.
[29:16] Speaker 6: You know this is this is this.
[29:17] Speaker 3: Kind of to be creative, like everything be creative different,
[29:22] Speaker 3: like each wedding is a different thing. So it was
[29:26] Speaker 3: like it was fun for you.
[29:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. So I started.
[29:29] Speaker 6: I went on this app called Thumbtack, you know about,
[29:33] Speaker 6: and then you get like different bookings and I think
[29:36] Speaker 6: my first wedding was two hundred bucks and they love
[29:39] Speaker 6: the pictures.
[29:40] Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, so you want to bought
[29:42] Speaker 1: your camera, use your friends camera. I bought a camera, okay,
[29:45] Speaker 1: the same camera he had.
[29:46] Speaker 4: What camera?
[29:47] Speaker 1: Was it? T THR eye?
[29:49] Speaker 4: You gotta start off with.
[29:50] Speaker 3: That, yeah, camera, But are you canon?
[29:54] Speaker 1: Are you Well?
[29:58] Speaker 5: That's a Mark War over there, and then there's an
[30:02] Speaker 5: eos R over there. Yeah you know, yeah, I got
[30:04] Speaker 5: to have e F lenses. All of these are sitting
[30:07] Speaker 5: on those black magics and all that. So yeah, so
[30:09] Speaker 5: what do y'all team? What cannon about to say?
[30:12] Speaker 1: Nikon too? You know?
[30:13] Speaker 6: So we kind of have a nikon thing going on
[30:15] Speaker 6: as well, so.
[30:16] Speaker 1: People are a little confused, you know.
[30:18] Speaker 5: But you know, so y'all would use both of them
[30:21] Speaker 5: at a wedding, I would, Yeah, you'll use a nikon
[30:25] Speaker 5: and a cannon to shoot photography, or you'll use one
[30:27] Speaker 5: on for video and then use the other one for photography.
[30:29] Speaker 6: I would use, you know, so for me, I would
[30:31] Speaker 6: use both for photography. But the team, the team mostly
[30:33] Speaker 6: used cannon and sony.
[30:35] Speaker 5: Yeah, there's always that sony and cannon battle. Yep, okay,
[30:39] Speaker 5: are we still equally? Keep talking?
[30:44] Speaker 3: So yeah, that's how we got started.
[30:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much in a photography space.
[30:48] Speaker 5: And you shot your first wedding, And what did you
[30:50] Speaker 5: feel about the work that you did at the first wedding?
[30:54] Speaker 6: Man time, I was like, you know, this must be
[30:58] Speaker 6: this is great, this.
[31:00] Speaker 3: His first picture here.
[31:02] Speaker 6: But then I look back from like now and I'm like, oh, man,
[31:06] Speaker 6: thank you for hiring me.
[31:09] Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
[31:10] Speaker 4: Well, it's only two hundred so the day that was
[31:15] Speaker 4: how many years ago?
[31:16] Speaker 1: Ten years ago?
[31:17] Speaker 4: Ten years ago? So this is your ten year anniversary?
[31:20] Speaker 1: Yes it is.
[31:20] Speaker 4: What month did you start?
[31:22] Speaker 1: October?
[31:23] Speaker 4: October? So October your ten.
[31:24] Speaker 3: Year anniversary October seventeen.
[31:26] Speaker 5: Wow, almost to the day of your wedding. Yeah, that
[31:31] Speaker 5: is crazy. Your wedding photography business jumped off almost a day,
[31:36] Speaker 5: three days apart from when y'all said y'all vows and
[31:39] Speaker 5: got married.
[31:40] Speaker 3: Yep, we are married in twenty eighteen, and you.
[31:43] Speaker 5: Started photography in what year? Twenty fIF So three years later,
[31:46] Speaker 5: three days later, three years and three days will always
[31:50] Speaker 5: be the whole thing.
[31:51] Speaker 4: And so when you what did you hear?
[31:54] Speaker 5: What did you think when he came back and told you, Hey,
[31:56] Speaker 5: you know I shot my first wedding. You knew about
[31:58] Speaker 5: him going there.
[31:59] Speaker 3: What did you think about it once he picked up
[32:00] Speaker 3: the camera? Because I witnessed like the whole thing. I
[32:04] Speaker 3: just thought photography was just going to be a hobby.
[32:07] Speaker 3: Accounting was the thing he had his mindset on and
[32:10] Speaker 3: break you know, had to learn about money, helping his
[32:14] Speaker 3: parents learn about money, everybody. That was his thing. So
[32:16] Speaker 3: I just thought photography was a hobby. And at the time,
[32:21] Speaker 3: I was doing modeling back in South Florida, so I
[32:24] Speaker 3: was doing like runway and photo shoots. So I would
[32:28] Speaker 3: just help him, like pose if you were to This
[32:30] Speaker 3: wasn't like weddings yet it was just like if you
[32:33] Speaker 3: need to pose a model or whatever. So I just
[32:36] Speaker 3: kind of gave him my insight. But once we got
[32:39] Speaker 3: into the wedding space, that's when we like, the both
[32:42] Speaker 3: of us working together, it just feit like a love.
[32:45] Speaker 3: It was like perfect. And I did I do take pictures,
[32:51] Speaker 3: but it was more so me posing people and just
[32:55] Speaker 3: being that third eye for him, and it was just seamless.
[32:58] Speaker 5: Yeah, because one thing I hate doing is posing, and
[33:01] Speaker 5: one thing I hate doing. When I was photographers posing people, yeah,
[33:04] Speaker 5: i'd be like.
[33:05] Speaker 3: Y'all, that's our favorite thing to do.
[33:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like post people.
[33:08] Speaker 5: No, I suck at that. Rihanna, Rihanna, Rihanna models and
[33:13] Speaker 5: stuff like that. I said, Rihanna, come come and help
[33:15] Speaker 5: pose people, yeah, because she's real good at that. Really,
[33:18] Speaker 5: y'all suck. I'd be like, I don't know, just standing there,
[33:20] Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't like the way you standing
[33:21] Speaker 5: to stand.
[33:21] Speaker 3: The other way a couple, yeah, the couples who it
[33:27] Speaker 3: just depends on.
[33:28] Speaker 2: It's hard.
[33:28] Speaker 3: It could be harder for certain people to pose, and
[33:32] Speaker 3: we just want we always ask them to just be
[33:33] Speaker 3: in there natural element and then we work around that.
[33:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I actually love it.
[33:38] Speaker 6: I love I love directing couples and just kind of
[33:40] Speaker 6: getting a feel of them, just guiding them and helping
[33:43] Speaker 6: them pose.
[33:44] Speaker 5: I've seen you at work. That's one of the things
[33:45] Speaker 5: I said, this yoke is good. He's so dog gone good.
[33:49] Speaker 5: I was just sitting there like, yeah, stand right there,
[33:51] Speaker 5: that turn right there, yeah, yeah, right there, hold his
[33:53] Speaker 5: head like that right there, right there, right there, all
[33:56] Speaker 5: right cool. And I was like, he'd be so relaxed.
[33:57] Speaker 5: I'd be like, hey, stand up, I be stressing out
[34:01] Speaker 5: his personality, be like he would be sweating, come back
[34:06] Speaker 5: and be sweat or whatever.
[34:10] Speaker 3: Well, everything could be on fire, and m is just like,
[34:13] Speaker 3: all right, let's use the flames.
[34:15] Speaker 1: Right yeah, yeah, yeah, just shoot through it. You know,
[34:18] Speaker 1: I love it.
[34:21] Speaker 5: Get that shot, Thank you money shot Brod vaccine holder.
[34:27] Speaker 5: It I was watching. I said, he's so calm as
[34:30] Speaker 5: a photographer. And I'm telling you, photography when you're shooting
[34:33] Speaker 5: the wedding. And then one of the things that I
[34:34] Speaker 5: respect a lot, as you were talking about in the
[34:37] Speaker 5: video that I was watching, was that, you know, sometimes
[34:40] Speaker 5: a photographer can be overbearing and just take up all
[34:42] Speaker 5: the shots and the videographers kind of shooting around the
[34:45] Speaker 5: photographer of you, Like, you know what I do is,
[34:47] Speaker 5: you know, I get my shots and I sit back
[34:49] Speaker 5: and tell people to post with a videographer and all
[34:52] Speaker 5: that stuff. And I was like, yeah, because I remember
[34:53] Speaker 5: when I used to shoot, uh, I used to shoot
[34:56] Speaker 5: more of the video side and uh, and doing that,
[34:59] Speaker 5: it was like, I feel like I'm just shooting a
[35:01] Speaker 5: b roll of the photographer and I was like I
[35:04] Speaker 5: can't stand that. I'm like, why you hogging up everything?
[35:07] Speaker 5: Can you stop and let me get some shots? And
[35:09] Speaker 5: then I'm getting kind of left over its you know
[35:11] Speaker 5: what I'm saying. Truthfully speaking, videography, especially when I started
[35:15] Speaker 5: out doing it was a afterthought like it was. It
[35:19] Speaker 5: was straight afterthought. It was like, hey, we got photography,
[35:22] Speaker 5: and I was like, hey, why don't you get videography?
[35:23] Speaker 5: Like why do I need that? I said, don't you
[35:25] Speaker 5: want to hear what you.
[35:27] Speaker 4: Did on you?
[35:28] Speaker 1: For sure? Yeah?
[35:29] Speaker 5: I said, how are you getting this a photo? Don't
[35:31] Speaker 5: you want to hear this? Like I don't have no
[35:32] Speaker 5: money for that. I used to be like, what you
[35:34] Speaker 5: got five hundred dollars, I'll take it. I'm just gonna
[35:37] Speaker 5: do it. And I would just do it just so
[35:39] Speaker 5: I could build a portfolio to be like man just
[35:42] Speaker 5: and then they'd be like, oh my god, and I
[35:43] Speaker 5: can relive these moments over and over again. I was like, yeah,
[35:46] Speaker 5: but then I'm telling you back then, no one cared.
[35:49] Speaker 5: I remember I shot me and my friend Tony pettipherd
[35:53] Speaker 5: he's one of the groomsmen, and my wedding. He and
[35:56] Speaker 5: I started a video photography wedding called One Not Photography.
[36:01] Speaker 5: And I was sitting at the dinner table with Kurt Franklin,
[36:06] Speaker 5: that's a good friend of mine, and I was like, hey, listen,
[36:11] Speaker 5: his daughter was getting married Carrington, and I was like, hey,
[36:15] Speaker 5: did you book anybody do videographer? She was like, I
[36:17] Speaker 5: mean videography. She was like no, she said, do I
[36:19] Speaker 5: need videography? I said yes.
[36:21] Speaker 4: What happened?
[36:22] Speaker 5: She was naming all the people that were singing. She said,
[36:24] Speaker 5: we're gonna have Brian mcnight singing. We have Yolanda Adams,
[36:27] Speaker 5: we got Donnie McClerkin. She was naming all that, Chris Sette, Michelle.
[36:30] Speaker 5: She was naming these people and I said, are y'all
[36:32] Speaker 5: doing videos? She said no, just photographer. I said, no,
[36:36] Speaker 5: one's going to hear these people singing. She was like,
[36:38] Speaker 5: I don't have no budget for it. I said, man,
[36:40] Speaker 5: I'll do it for free. I will shoot your wedding
[36:43] Speaker 5: for free. That would be the biggest, like portfolio here
[36:47] Speaker 5: it is.
[36:48] Speaker 4: Man.
[36:48] Speaker 5: We went out there, but we had a full team people.
[36:50] Speaker 5: We were shooting that dog on thing.
[36:52] Speaker 1: Man.
[36:52] Speaker 4: We were shooting like Craig Drone.
[36:54] Speaker 1: Shots on the bad.
[36:55] Speaker 4: We were doing all kinds of stuff.
[36:57] Speaker 5: And the video that we dropped went viral with him
[36:59] Speaker 5: and his daughter Carrington doing this the first dance with
[37:03] Speaker 5: father and daughter. Dads went super viral, got like a
[37:05] Speaker 5: half a million views in like eight hours or whatnot.
[37:08] Speaker 4: And she was like, thank you for talking me into that.
[37:10] Speaker 5: And then for every major moment in their lives, their
[37:14] Speaker 5: first child, you know, first kid. I shot the first
[37:17] Speaker 5: birthday party and all that stuff. But what I love
[37:19] Speaker 5: about photographers is that you get a chance to be
[37:22] Speaker 5: embedded in the story of the of the client and.
[37:26] Speaker 4: It doesn't just become a client.
[37:28] Speaker 1: Like I was telling my.
[37:29] Speaker 5: Fiance, I was like, well, you know, Riem, I mean
[37:32] Speaker 5: they just they just you know, the Virgo is gonna
[37:35] Speaker 5: be family now at this point, because you're going to
[37:37] Speaker 5: be in intimate spaces with us. You're going to be
[37:39] Speaker 5: in moments that is the beginning of our covenant and
[37:43] Speaker 5: share spaces where you capture it and what you capture
[37:46] Speaker 5: is going to allow us not only to relive that moment,
[37:49] Speaker 5: but for people that wasn't in these sacred spaces in
[37:53] Speaker 5: our groom suite or bridal suite. You're gonna be able
[37:56] Speaker 5: to capture these intimate moments where people get a chance
[37:59] Speaker 5: to look at and be you know what I'm saying,
[38:01] Speaker 5: those moments And that's why I said, I never take
[38:03] Speaker 5: that for granted, and I never take a photographer, especially
[38:06] Speaker 5: those with a skill set like yours, I never take
[38:09] Speaker 5: that for granted.
[38:09] Speaker 1: So thank you man.
[38:10] Speaker 6: That's man. That's such a great point, man, Because we're
[38:13] Speaker 6: there with y'all the entire day, right, we're only we're
[38:16] Speaker 6: one of the only people who are there with y'all
[38:18] Speaker 6: the entire day. So you getting ready sunning up to
[38:22] Speaker 6: sun down all that good stuff, and you keep saying
[38:24] Speaker 6: a reliving pug that in there real quick, you know,
[38:28] Speaker 6: because because reem actually stands for reliving each and every
[38:32] Speaker 6: moment broken and Sandy came up with it.
[38:36] Speaker 1: Yeah. See, that's why you got to have a good wife.
[38:38] Speaker 1: But you know, he finds a wife, you know.
[38:42] Speaker 5: Favor from the Lord. Amen. So you came up with that?
[38:46] Speaker 5: What made you decide to make his name an acronymic?
[38:48] Speaker 3: He went so his he had several different business names,
[38:52] Speaker 3: first one being Irin Irin expressions I expressed, I don't
[38:57] Speaker 3: know all these types of things.
[39:00] Speaker 1: I was trying to find my way.
[39:02] Speaker 3: People just started calling him Riem and no one called
[39:05] Speaker 3: you ring growing up. That was just something that came
[39:08] Speaker 3: up in college and all that stuff. So he was like,
[39:11] Speaker 3: I think I like rem And I was like, but
[39:13] Speaker 3: Riem got to mean something, like it has to mean
[39:15] Speaker 3: something and immediately and we work like that, Like a
[39:18] Speaker 3: lot of the ideas start like he starts it. I
[39:24] Speaker 3: come in, I put my little sprinkle on there, and
[39:26] Speaker 3: then it just it just takes off. It just takes off.
[39:30] Speaker 5: How do you feel when y'all first saw that? Though,
[39:32] Speaker 5: Like a lot of times, I always say that God
[39:36] Speaker 5: allowed me to re discover what marriage is, not just
[39:40] Speaker 5: husband and wife, but to be purpose partners.
[39:44] Speaker 4: And you see it.
[39:46] Speaker 5: In three D with you guys, because y'all could have
[39:49] Speaker 5: different careers doing whatever y'all do, but y'all are serving
[39:52] Speaker 5: purpose together.
[39:53] Speaker 4: How does it.
[39:54] Speaker 5: Feel on both of y'all's end, And I'm gonna start off
[39:56] Speaker 5: with Reem, is that you have your purpose partner, that
[39:58] Speaker 5: she says that you can have an idea and she'll
[40:01] Speaker 5: that seed, She'll take that seed and bring a whole baby.
[40:05] Speaker 4: How do you feel about that?
[40:06] Speaker 1: Man?
[40:07] Speaker 6: I don't think. I don't think this would have worked
[40:08] Speaker 6: if we didn't have that dynamic. I think she believed
[40:12] Speaker 6: in the vision I had for everything from the get go,
[40:15] Speaker 6: and if we didn't have that, I think I don't
[40:18] Speaker 6: know if this would have even worked.
[40:20] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
[40:20] Speaker 6: Because so because she knew and saw the vision that
[40:24] Speaker 6: I had for me being a photographer, it just that
[40:28] Speaker 6: was all the confirmation I needed because when I when
[40:30] Speaker 6: I quit my job, I didn't even put in my
[40:32] Speaker 6: two weeks notice really, I just I just left.
[40:37] Speaker 1: Yeah. And she was like, oh, well, your wedding of
[40:40] Speaker 1: our wedding planet.
[40:41] Speaker 6: Yeah, And she was like, look, let's pray on it
[40:45] Speaker 6: and and if you're really serious about this, let's just
[40:48] Speaker 6: put in that work. And I was like, bet, and
[40:51] Speaker 6: that was it.
[40:52] Speaker 4: But she was like, oh, I say, just quit that quick.
[40:54] Speaker 1: I told you, Yeah, he called me.
[40:56] Speaker 2: It was not even nine o'clock.
[40:58] Speaker 3: It was like it probably was like, ain't even in.
[41:01] Speaker 3: He was in the car and he was like, I can't.
[41:03] Speaker 3: I physically cannot get out of this.
[41:05] Speaker 1: Car and I physically couldn't. He was.
[41:09] Speaker 3: He spent all the hours editing photos, the website everything anyways,
[41:14] Speaker 3: So I said, I said, you're not gonna embarrass me
[41:16] Speaker 3: with this wedding, like you're not, like if you gonna
[41:20] Speaker 3: quit your job, you need to go like you need
[41:24] Speaker 3: to go in. And I knew he had it in
[41:27] Speaker 3: him and it was the thing he needed because we
[41:29] Speaker 3: had a wedding, like we had a three hundred guest
[41:31] Speaker 3: wedding like that.
[41:33] Speaker 6: That was that was low key confirmation that I needed though.
[41:35] Speaker 6: I just needed some sort of confirmation When she said that, yeah,
[41:38] Speaker 6: I was like, if you can just confirm that I
[41:40] Speaker 6: can go and put this work in, really I'm out.
[41:43] Speaker 3: And then October two weeks before our wedding, like he
[41:47] Speaker 3: he it was like, oh that's my husband.
[41:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh we're gonna get good like yeah, I mean
[41:55] Speaker 1: I dropped. I dropped. We did.
[41:58] Speaker 6: We did like ten free shoots, like just free photo
[42:01] Speaker 6: shoots for different couples, just just to put the work out. Yeah,
[42:04] Speaker 6: get their website looking right, because people be like, oh,
[42:07] Speaker 6: you know, nobody's booking me, nobody's looking me. Well, nobody
[42:09] Speaker 6: can't see your work, right, nobody's gonna Why would I
[42:11] Speaker 6: come to your store if there's nothing on.
[42:13] Speaker 4: The shelves, Yeah, no clothes there.
[42:16] Speaker 6: So we just started put on a bunch of free
[42:17] Speaker 6: work and a lot of people gave us good feedback
[42:20] Speaker 6: and people just saw that we do weddings as well,
[42:22] Speaker 6: and it just it just came from it.
[42:25] Speaker 3: Well, I remember when we when we were about to
[42:28] Speaker 3: get that year, like we were engaged, playing on the wedding.
[42:30] Speaker 3: I made about sixty k remade about forty fifty K.
[42:35] Speaker 3: I was like, if we can get to one hundred k,
[42:36] Speaker 3: we're good. Like that's above anything we've ever seen. Absolutely,
[42:41] Speaker 3: our wedding alone was it was, it was, It was.
[42:45] Speaker 3: It was a lot.
[42:46] Speaker 2: I ain't gonna lie it was a lot.
[42:48] Speaker 3: It was a lot.
[42:49] Speaker 1: I mean, you know she got a big family.
[42:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, guys. He had fifteen of his family there, fifteen.
[42:55] Speaker 1: At one table.
[42:57] Speaker 6: I had one tabley'll he had two hund eighty five. Crazy,
[43:02] Speaker 6: I'm over here waving the people like.
[43:03] Speaker 2: You had a lot of college friends.
[43:05] Speaker 3: I have about maybe like one hundred.
[43:10] Speaker 4: But from here's my family.
[43:11] Speaker 1: Yep.
[43:11] Speaker 3: Already say everybody, everything we did just so these people
[43:15] Speaker 3: can eat and drink and have a good time though,
[43:17] Speaker 3: I said, we can. We can. We can work hard
[43:21] Speaker 3: and create a life and be we can be debt free,
[43:27] Speaker 3: we can build generational wealth and we can inspire because
[43:31] Speaker 3: a lot of people they they booked us because we
[43:35] Speaker 3: were in love and we were shooting love and I
[43:39] Speaker 3: quit my job.
[43:40] Speaker 1: You did good?
[43:45] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can quit, like this is this is
[43:50] Speaker 3: what we love to do.
[43:52] Speaker 5: So you quit how many months before? Three months?
[43:55] Speaker 1: I quit about six months months before April?
[43:58] Speaker 2: And I quit two weeks befo the right deposit.
[44:01] Speaker 3: We needed my money to keep like that was but
[44:05] Speaker 3: once once, yeah, so was.
[44:07] Speaker 4: You afraid to quit?
[44:08] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[44:09] Speaker 4: Why so?
[44:11] Speaker 3: I was the So I worked in HR. I got
[44:14] Speaker 3: my MBA in human resources, and when I got that
[44:17] Speaker 3: particular job, I moved up really quickly and I was
[44:23] Speaker 3: the only black woman in there. I had the highest degree,
[44:26] Speaker 3: and I saw myself possibly being a director one day.
[44:30] Speaker 3: And my boss at the time, she she really pushed me.
[44:35] Speaker 3: But it got to a point where I just I said,
[44:38] Speaker 3: I don't know if I could do this much longer.
[44:41] Speaker 4: You felt when he was in that call.
[44:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, but I felt like it was a spiritual war
[44:47] Speaker 2: for sure.
[44:48] Speaker 3: And I think I think too A lot of people
[44:50] Speaker 3: at my job they because they knew, they started knowing
[44:53] Speaker 3: about what I was doing, and I think it kind
[44:56] Speaker 3: of caused something, I don't want to say, jealousy, but yeah, yeah, yeah,
[45:02] Speaker 3: I think I think they were like, yeah, because I
[45:05] Speaker 3: was I was a little Haitian girl, this little black girl.
[45:07] Speaker 2: They gave a chance and I was doing a great job.
[45:12] Speaker 3: But I think it kind of what what they loved
[45:15] Speaker 3: about me was what they didn't like about me at
[45:17] Speaker 3: the end. So I remember when I quit, my boss
[45:21] Speaker 3: was like, well, what are you going to do? And
[45:23] Speaker 3: I said, whatever I put my hands on, God would
[45:25] Speaker 3: bless you, said, I said what I said, I don't
[45:29] Speaker 3: know what I'm going to do actually, because a lot
[45:32] Speaker 3: of people, I think at the time, just was like, oh,
[45:34] Speaker 3: your your your husband, you're soon to be husband, has
[45:37] Speaker 3: all of this, but what about you?
[45:39] Speaker 5: You know?
[45:39] Speaker 3: And I struggled with that even after I quit. I
[45:42] Speaker 3: love that we worked together, but at some point I
[45:44] Speaker 3: was like that it's it's really you. Because the name
[45:48] Speaker 3: is ram. It's not Sandy in it, but.
[45:50] Speaker 5: This is good right here, so even in it, because
[45:53] Speaker 5: this is so freaking good, he already said that he
[45:56] Speaker 5: couldn't do it without you. I don't know if that's
[45:59] Speaker 5: hindsight being to at the beginning. Was he inviting you
[46:02] Speaker 5: in these spaces because he allowed you to name the company?
[46:05] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[46:06] Speaker 5: Way if he started off under one name at first
[46:08] Speaker 5: and then they evolved to.
[46:09] Speaker 4: Rheim, But.
[46:12] Speaker 5: Why did you feel like that was his success and
[46:15] Speaker 5: wouldn't be yours?
[46:18] Speaker 3: Because there's this As much as women want to be
[46:22] Speaker 3: taken care of and they have the picture perfect life,
[46:27] Speaker 3: they have the husband who make six figures for the home,
[46:32] Speaker 3: there's also another part side that a lot of women
[46:34] Speaker 3: don't talk about that you get judged for it. Look
[46:37] Speaker 3: you look like, oh, you're just a housewife, You're not
[46:40] Speaker 3: doing anything. And I received a lot of that from
[46:45] Speaker 3: maybe friendships and people that just knew me, and but
[46:50] Speaker 3: majority of the people that did ed just solace on
[46:52] Speaker 3: social media right or worked with us, They were like,
[46:55] Speaker 3: we need Sandy there. It took it took years for
[46:58] Speaker 3: people to say where's you, where's your wife? I'm not
[47:01] Speaker 3: holding a camera, but I needed to be there.
[47:04] Speaker 4: Why why? Why did why did they start connecting?
[47:07] Speaker 2: Because I I am a I love connection.
[47:10] Speaker 3: I love to I would find myself maybe five minutes
[47:14] Speaker 3: before the bride has to go down the aisle. She's
[47:16] Speaker 3: by herself, no planner, no maid of honor, and I'm
[47:18] Speaker 3: praying with her.
[47:20] Speaker 1: I'm I'm.
[47:23] Speaker 2: It became like I.
[47:25] Speaker 3: Was like, oh God, this is not just waiting photography.
[47:27] Speaker 1: This is this is a ministry. This is ministry, and
[47:31] Speaker 1: people forget that. Yeah, and I just think.
[47:33] Speaker 3: It was just the enemy, just whispering. And I had like,
[47:35] Speaker 3: oh this, Yeah, remember.
[47:36] Speaker 1: You you you were a whole degree.
[47:39] Speaker 2: Yeah you got this, you got that.
[47:40] Speaker 3: You're not using that at all, and you're just yeah,
[47:42] Speaker 3: you have a successful business, but it's not your business.
[47:45] Speaker 3: But once I became one with this man, that is
[47:49] Speaker 3: that is my business. That is our business. That is
[47:52] Speaker 3: everything we built together.
[47:53] Speaker 2: We did it. He reminds me every day.
[47:55] Speaker 3: He won't say my he won't talk about our company
[47:59] Speaker 3: without mentioning my name.
[48:01] Speaker 4: So, yeah, why is that important?
[48:04] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[48:04] Speaker 6: You hit it right on the money, Like people just
[48:07] Speaker 6: look at the the face of the business type thing.
[48:09] Speaker 6: They see my face and it's attached that you know,
[48:11] Speaker 6: Reem is the guy who's doing all the work well
[48:14] Speaker 6: all this stuff, But like, just because I'm doing the labor,
[48:17] Speaker 6: it doesn't mean she's not doing the work exactly, you
[48:19] Speaker 6: know what I mean. She has been the brains behind
[48:21] Speaker 6: this entire business. And what do people think when I'm
[48:24] Speaker 6: going out here and shooting his weddings and posing these
[48:27] Speaker 6: brides and giving all these feedback to them and all
[48:30] Speaker 6: that good stuff. You know, where do they think that
[48:31] Speaker 6: comes from? You know what I'm saying, It literally comes
[48:34] Speaker 6: from her. Like as simple as how does her hair look?
[48:39] Speaker 6: When I'm editing the photos, I'm like, yo.
[48:41] Speaker 1: What is like? What is that? La? You know what
[48:44] Speaker 1: I mean?
[48:44] Speaker 3: That's a lace?
[48:46] Speaker 1: You have to make sure, like what's going on?
[48:49] Speaker 5: Right? You know.
[48:50] Speaker 6: I would go to a wedding and they're like, they're like,
[48:53] Speaker 6: where's your wife. I'm like, oh man, she couldn't make it,
[48:56] Speaker 6: And they're like what I'm like, but I'm here, Okay,
[49:02] Speaker 6: Maybe all hurt and stuff, But it just goes to
[49:05] Speaker 6: show how much she is a part of the business
[49:07] Speaker 6: that I am. Just because her face not be attached
[49:10] Speaker 6: to it as much as I am, She's every much
[49:13] Speaker 6: as this business as I am. So yeah, I think
[49:16] Speaker 6: a lot of people don't really realize that.
[49:17] Speaker 5: Did it take a while to get to that level
[49:20] Speaker 5: as a couple or did it always start off like that,
[49:22] Speaker 5: because like I said, you quit your job, pride and bears.
[49:25] Speaker 5: That was that something that y'all had to learn to
[49:27] Speaker 5: allow each other's strengths to shine?
[49:31] Speaker 4: Or was it?
[49:31] Speaker 5: Because a lot of times that's a whole maturation phase.
[49:35] Speaker 5: Because sometimes with men be like, old on, I got this,
[49:38] Speaker 5: this is what I do. I don't need you try
[49:39] Speaker 5: and tell me how I do this, don't tell me
[49:41] Speaker 5: how to do this. Is always like that.
[49:43] Speaker 3: I can't explain why, because that's the number one question.
[49:45] Speaker 3: A lot of women reach out to me, like how
[49:49] Speaker 3: do you work with your husband?
[49:50] Speaker 2: How do you make it work?
[49:52] Speaker 3: And I'm like, we truly feel like this is our ministry.
[49:56] Speaker 3: There's nothing else we could say about it. We can't
[49:58] Speaker 3: have arguments about other stuff like that, have nothing. It's
[50:01] Speaker 3: never about a wedding, never about work. We love traveling together.
[50:04] Speaker 3: It's the only thing now we don't travel as much
[50:07] Speaker 3: because we have our son and three heard three last week.
[50:13] Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, he was almost a vergo's yeah, but yeah,
[50:22] Speaker 3: so but we just it the thing, even if we
[50:26] Speaker 3: were like kind of mad at each other because it's
[50:29] Speaker 3: some petty little forgot whatever, we would get like we
[50:37] Speaker 3: gotta leave at one pm, like well, I'm still doing makeup.
[50:40] Speaker 3: Whatever it is. Once we got get to the wedding,
[50:42] Speaker 3: it's just like and he says something all the time
[50:46] Speaker 3: and that whenever we go to a wedding and we
[50:50] Speaker 3: get especially the ceremony, it's like where we're doing.
[50:53] Speaker 5: I was about to ask a special moment seeing.
[50:56] Speaker 3: The family, seeing the couples come together, is I don't
[51:00] Speaker 3: I don't know another thing that I love more than
[51:05] Speaker 3: wedding photography.
[51:06] Speaker 5: Never been went to your first wedding with your wife,
[51:11] Speaker 5: and now that's all y'all do now?
[51:13] Speaker 1: Is well?
[51:14] Speaker 6: Yeah, and then like the pastor be talking, the couples
[51:17] Speaker 6: be saying their vows and then just be looking at
[51:20] Speaker 6: each other like, man, I should have said that when
[51:23] Speaker 6: that was a good one. Yeah, putting it in my
[51:28] Speaker 6: iPhone notes, I've been like, oh that's pretty good.
[51:30] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[51:31] Speaker 6: So I think it's it's it's crazy that we get
[51:34] Speaker 6: to shoot weddings because every single wedding that we shoot,
[51:37] Speaker 6: we get to just learn something more seeing families come
[51:40] Speaker 6: together seeing a couple say their vows, the pastors that
[51:43] Speaker 6: they have all that good stuff.
[51:45] Speaker 1: I'm just I just be taking notes.
[51:46] Speaker 4: How many way did you think y'all shot.
[51:50] Speaker 1: Total? Yeah? Definitely over a thousand, really, yeah, over a thousand.
[51:55] Speaker 2: Oh no, definitely way more than that. This year.
[51:58] Speaker 1: That's just being modest.
[51:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, this year, we've had over.
[52:01] Speaker 5: Probably eighty yeah, eighty, So y'all be shooting a couple
[52:04] Speaker 5: of week then, yeah. Yeah, it's not just like y'all
[52:08] Speaker 5: doing once a week in.
[52:09] Speaker 3: The beginning when we after we got married, we were
[52:12] Speaker 3: like on especially you know, kids like just me, like
[52:16] Speaker 3: we sometimes three four weddings a week.
[52:19] Speaker 6: Yeah, and before people be like, oh, eighty, you know,
[52:21] Speaker 6: just to give context, we have a team as well,
[52:24] Speaker 6: so yeah, you know the team and us, it's about
[52:27] Speaker 6: eighty for the year.
[52:28] Speaker 4: So how did y'all first start branching out?
[52:30] Speaker 1: Where are y'all from South Florida?
[52:33] Speaker 4: South Florida?
[52:34] Speaker 5: How did y'all how did your wedding business start taking
[52:37] Speaker 5: off from just being in y'all's region to being I'll
[52:40] Speaker 5: probably say worldwide because y'all shot international. Yeah, yeah, so
[52:45] Speaker 5: how did that even? How did that happen?
[52:47] Speaker 1: That's a great question. Yeah.
[52:48] Speaker 6: I mean it started with shooting for free of course,
[52:50] Speaker 6: you know, doing the free shoots, getting all of our
[52:53] Speaker 6: content out there. And then I think once you get
[52:56] Speaker 6: kind of that one out of state wedding and you
[52:58] Speaker 6: start posting it, pol just start being like location, Yeah,
[53:02] Speaker 6: put the location and tag the you know, tag the
[53:04] Speaker 6: venue and stuff. They must shoot out of state, right,
[53:08] Speaker 6: I'm like, yep, why not.
[53:13] Speaker 3: Even if we were traveling, we would damn a couple
[53:16] Speaker 3: that we know this out there or and we say, hey,
[53:19] Speaker 3: you guys want to shoot and then you just changed
[53:22] Speaker 3: the locations tag up there.
[53:24] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[53:24] Speaker 1: But social media.
[53:26] Speaker 3: But during COVID, COVID is what changed.
[53:28] Speaker 1: Us really, Yeah for sure. So getting counseled.
[53:31] Speaker 3: During that time, yes, that's when we had that was
[53:35] Speaker 3: like our biggest blessing was COVID. So during COVID, I
[53:39] Speaker 3: want to say, like the beginning when everything got shut down,
[53:43] Speaker 3: I just I was never scared when it came to like,
[53:46] Speaker 3: oh yeah, like the whole world shut down. Everybody can't
[53:48] Speaker 3: pay their bills, everybody.
[53:50] Speaker 1: I thought, I thought about going back to work.
[53:52] Speaker 5: Man, let me tell you something. I'm trying to figure
[53:54] Speaker 5: everything in life to do. I started did future wife
[53:56] Speaker 5: during COVID. Yeah, I was literally going to to do
[54:00] Speaker 5: a podcast for some school districts and I was talking
[54:03] Speaker 5: them into it.
[54:03] Speaker 4: That's how I had all the equipment, and.
[54:05] Speaker 5: So they were just like, well, we don't know if school,
[54:07] Speaker 5: we don't know what's going on, so we don't know
[54:09] Speaker 5: if we're gonna have to do the podcast.
[54:10] Speaker 4: I said, I'm tired of as.
[54:12] Speaker 5: Trying to chase everybody else to get them to convince
[54:15] Speaker 5: them while podcasts necessary, I said, I would just be
[54:17] Speaker 5: the proof of concept. I'm gonna go ahead and be
[54:20] Speaker 5: my own calling card. I'm gonna produce a podcast and
[54:22] Speaker 5: now I'm gonna show people this is how you do
[54:24] Speaker 5: a podcast.
[54:25] Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, that means I gotta.
[54:27] Speaker 5: Record this stuff. I said, oh, I'll be telling everybody
[54:30] Speaker 5: my business. Then I got I said, let me think
[54:33] Speaker 5: about it. I said, I'm gonna tell everybody my business.
[54:35] Speaker 5: How's that gonna go? I don't care. I need to
[54:37] Speaker 5: get healed anyway. And that's why I started out doing it,
[54:40] Speaker 5: and it just started. It just it just took off.
[54:42] Speaker 5: But I was afraid. I did it because I wanted
[54:46] Speaker 5: to show the clients I want to track how to
[54:49] Speaker 5: do a podcast.
[54:50] Speaker 1: Wow, and then I accidentally became successful.
[54:54] Speaker 3: Es yes, that's a that's a so and.
[55:00] Speaker 5: So during COVID you said you was about to go
[55:01] Speaker 5: back to get a job and then what about you?
[55:04] Speaker 3: So about two weeks and two three weeks in like
[55:06] Speaker 3: we're like, oh, everything's getting canceled. Literally everything got canceled,
[55:10] Speaker 3: and Riem caught up on all his edits and we're like, oh,
[55:14] Speaker 3: there's nothing to do.
[55:16] Speaker 2: We're just looking at each other.
[55:17] Speaker 3: And I said, DJ D Nice did his go live
[55:23] Speaker 3: DJ and all that.
[55:23] Speaker 2: So I was like, there's nothing like that we could do.
[55:25] Speaker 3: I was like, there's nothing like photography thing we could do.
[55:30] Speaker 3: And I'm notorious for if I'm on FaceTime with somebody,
[55:34] Speaker 3: I will take their picture. There's like a little button
[55:36] Speaker 3: on the iPhone that you could take a live photo.
[55:39] Speaker 3: And I told Reem. He didn't know what I was
[55:40] Speaker 3: talking about, thought I was crazy. And I said, can
[55:43] Speaker 3: we take some pictures of our friends on FaceTime and
[55:47] Speaker 3: edit these photos? And he was.
[55:51] Speaker 2: Like, I showed them.
[55:53] Speaker 3: We called two friends, two couples, and we had a
[55:56] Speaker 3: whole face We scream recorded the whole thing and we
[55:59] Speaker 3: took pictures of them. Those pictures re edited them. He
[56:02] Speaker 3: gave people line up. The pictures weren't good quality, but
[56:04] Speaker 3: they were just it was just fun. He posted it
[56:07] Speaker 3: and it took off.
[56:08] Speaker 4: That what took off.
[56:09] Speaker 1: It took off what people were saying.
[56:13] Speaker 3: They were just like, what we're shooting the virtually and
[56:16] Speaker 3: we were editing these photos and it got on a
[56:19] Speaker 3: bunch of places. We got on Good Morning America.
[56:24] Speaker 1: Station opened up are you serious? He opened up the
[56:28] Speaker 1: right word, so he question her. At first, I was like,
[56:31] Speaker 1: looking at it, why why.
[56:34] Speaker 2: This like where you could schedule?
[56:37] Speaker 3: Like no, he was, And we got start booking people
[56:41] Speaker 3: on Facebook. You know, we booked. We did over five
[56:44] Speaker 3: hundred photo shops for free, and that's when we shot
[56:47] Speaker 3: people in London, Paris, all over the US. And then
[56:52] Speaker 3: people just found out and people were crying on these
[56:54] Speaker 3: both past time shoots because all their stuff got canceled,
[56:57] Speaker 3: maternity shotes got canceled. This was their first child wedding.
[57:00] Speaker 3: We thought this was like, we thought it was funny.
[57:04] Speaker 2: People were on there like thank you.
[57:06] Speaker 1: We're like, wait, what what do we what did We created.
[57:10] Speaker 2: A lot of people.
[57:11] Speaker 3: Just then when the world opened back up, they were like,
[57:13] Speaker 3: we want you to be our photographer.
[57:16] Speaker 4: Advertising for your behind.
[57:18] Speaker 1: So we're shooting.
[57:19] Speaker 2: We're shooting in Africa before we even got Africa.
[57:21] Speaker 4: Yeah, so you tell me.
[57:22] Speaker 5: They would call y'all and y'all would do y'all would
[57:25] Speaker 5: tell them the screen record record, so.
[57:29] Speaker 3: They would place their camera somewhere. We'll tell them exactly
[57:31] Speaker 3: where we had set up.
[57:33] Speaker 1: We had constructions. You know, you must have Wi Fi.
[57:37] Speaker 1: We can show you after for sure.
[57:40] Speaker 5: And so y'all was doing that. But y'all was doing
[57:42] Speaker 5: it for free, and people.
[57:44] Speaker 3: Picture it was when when he was when we were
[57:47] Speaker 3: in the in it, we were like, okay, that's why
[57:50] Speaker 3: he had to shut down the website off it got
[57:53] Speaker 3: people started booking. It was so many people were like
[57:56] Speaker 3: and then it got on like shade room and you know,
[57:58] Speaker 3: once that happens, people are like, yeah, so.
[58:02] Speaker 1: But about five hundred people.
[58:04] Speaker 3: People people donated. We were able to pay our rent
[58:07] Speaker 3: for that month.
[58:07] Speaker 1: Oh good, yep.
[58:09] Speaker 4: I hope somebody will give you a little offer.
[58:10] Speaker 1: The d photo.
[58:14] Speaker 4: It's a bad idea.
[58:18] Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be there.
[58:19] Speaker 3: I can't, I can't do it. But that was that
[58:22] Speaker 3: was what really made us, I guess more known, just
[58:28] Speaker 3: a whole global, whole thing that we didn't even know
[58:31] Speaker 3: about so.
[58:32] Speaker 5: And then y'all got bookings from that. There was like, hey,
[58:35] Speaker 5: I'm getting married, come here. Uh did y'all only just
[58:38] Speaker 5: do weddings or where you'll doing like engagement shoots and
[58:42] Speaker 5: so even back then people's booking y'all. Y'all do like
[58:46] Speaker 5: maternity shoots and stuff like that. Y'all doing everything. So
[58:50] Speaker 5: he was like, I'm taking the booking.
[58:52] Speaker 3: Until now we do maternity and engagement shoots. We don't
[58:54] Speaker 3: do like we'll do a family shoot of course, because
[58:57] Speaker 3: we want to be a part of the journey.
[58:59] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[58:59] Speaker 3: So but don't newborn, we don't do.
[59:04] Speaker 1: We know what we like? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
[59:07] Speaker 6: And I don't want to like get I don't want
[59:09] Speaker 6: to disappointed person because it's something I don't like to shoot,
[59:12] Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying.
[59:12] Speaker 5: I'm gonna shoot like I like doing that myself. Yeah,
[59:15] Speaker 5: Because I was like this babysitters every like swallow them up. No,
[59:20] Speaker 5: I'd be like this is so you know what I'm
[59:22] Speaker 5: saying that I'm somebody and some people be good. They
[59:26] Speaker 5: know how to pose it, set it up, put all
[59:28] Speaker 5: that stuff up.
[59:28] Speaker 4: I'll be like, this is not my calling.
[59:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
[59:36] Speaker 5: I mean I did event photography, I did all that stuff,
[59:39] Speaker 5: and it's like, it's just it's something about weddings.
[59:42] Speaker 4: Wedding is my love.
[59:43] Speaker 5: I remember when bride dot com name me one of
[59:47] Speaker 5: the top podcast of the year, and I was like, wow.
[59:51] Speaker 1: If this isn't a full circle experience, wishing.
[59:54] Speaker 5: That my photography would hit bride u dot com And
[59:58] Speaker 5: here it is my podcast did That's just just a
[1:00:01] Speaker 5: regular Tuesday for Reim to be on bride dot com.
[1:00:05] Speaker 4: But you know some.
[1:00:05] Speaker 6: People, how you just be like hyping this. That's kind
[1:00:08] Speaker 6: of crazy, you all this stuff, sitting.
[1:00:12] Speaker 1: People back and see and everything talking.
[1:00:17] Speaker 3: About He's so humble, the one that's always like I
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: gotta like I got you.
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: Better tell him respect bride, tell him.
[1:00:27] Speaker 4: You've been on.
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: That's what That's what I love most about him. He
[1:00:32] Speaker 3: still feels like there's more to learn, more to do.
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: He's still like that I could have I could have
[1:00:37] Speaker 3: shot this this way. So he uses it for the
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: next wedding.
[1:00:40] Speaker 5: See the example, how your brain work at a wedding. Yeah,
[1:00:44] Speaker 5: when you say I could have liked stuff, she's saying.
[1:00:46] Speaker 6: I think after the wedding. So when I'm going through
[1:00:48] Speaker 6: the pictures. They call it color, you know, and I'm
[1:00:51] Speaker 6: just sorting through the pictures. I'm like, man, I could
[1:00:53] Speaker 6: have I could have stood this way, I could have
[1:00:56] Speaker 6: had a light here and all that good stuff, and
[1:00:58] Speaker 6: Sandy be like, you know, this is a nice picture,
[1:01:00] Speaker 6: right it Like I'm like, I know, but like I've
[1:01:03] Speaker 6: been good, have done this, And I think that just
[1:01:05] Speaker 6: shows that I never get complacent.
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: I never get comfortable with what I'm doing.
[1:01:09] Speaker 6: So you know, I don't want to I don't want
[1:01:11] Speaker 6: to ever reach the point where I'm like, yeah, I
[1:01:12] Speaker 6: did that.
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: Everything I do is good. I make no mistakes.
[1:01:16] Speaker 6: Yeah, I need you to tell me that this wasn't
[1:01:18] Speaker 6: you could have done better. And it's not because you're
[1:01:20] Speaker 6: coming for me, it's just because I want to do better.
[1:01:22] Speaker 5: Do you ever feel like that said when you look
[1:01:24] Speaker 5: at this stuff, you be like, yeah, that was pretty wet.
[1:01:26] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: I have to keep him, I have to like make
[1:01:30] Speaker 2: him work hard.
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, But it's I've always been just amazed by his
[1:01:35] Speaker 3: eye and how he like and I know I'm always
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: there and I see like I'll see something and he
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: really knows how to understand what I'm saying. But especially
[1:01:45] Speaker 3: since I don't really work with him as much. So
[1:01:47] Speaker 3: when when he comes back and shows me the gallery,
[1:01:49] Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, I taught you, well you did good, grasshopper,
[1:01:54] Speaker 3: change you with no, But it's just like it's always
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: been in him. He's so creative. So I always say, like,
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: you weren't meant to be in accounting in front of
[1:02:03] Speaker 3: sitting in front of a computer. It was like that
[1:02:05] Speaker 3: was not gonna you weren't going to two.
[1:02:07] Speaker 5: Different minds different So were you creative before accounting or
[1:02:11] Speaker 5: was you just just creativity just popped up one day?
[1:02:15] Speaker 6: Great question. Yeah, I think I always love art. Yeah,
[1:02:19] Speaker 6: I always used to draw and all that good stuff.
[1:02:22] Speaker 6: But photography. I didn't think I was going to be
[1:02:24] Speaker 6: a photographer at at all. Like I said nine years old,
[1:02:27] Speaker 6: I didn't even know what I was gonna do when
[1:02:28] Speaker 6: I was moving what you did know you wasn't doing.
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: I knew I was gonna live there. I didn't know
[1:02:32] Speaker 1: what I was about to do though, you know what
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: I'm saying.
[1:02:34] Speaker 6: But I always wanted to do like animation, like colorism,
[1:02:38] Speaker 6: and I guess like cartoonism and all that stuff. But
[1:02:41] Speaker 6: I didn't know I wanted to be a photographer at all.
[1:02:45] Speaker 5: Drawing and stuff, and I would draw my pictures will
[1:02:48] Speaker 5: always be around the school, but being the best artists
[1:02:51] Speaker 5: in the school for whatever great level.
[1:02:53] Speaker 4: So that's what I used to love. Uhhatogh.
[1:02:56] Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's just I just I just But that's
[1:02:58] Speaker 5: the reason why I can respect dreams work so much
[1:03:00] Speaker 5: is because of the eye that I have. I look,
[1:03:02] Speaker 5: I'll be like, God, he posted them right, he is
[1:03:05] Speaker 5: right here. You got a little back, like you got
[1:03:07] Speaker 5: a little catch light over there. You got to come
[1:03:11] Speaker 5: shover coome my third just be intimidated about ye.
[1:03:18] Speaker 3: People when they meet him, they're like, they're like, that's
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: not who I thought you were at all. Like he's
[1:03:24] Speaker 3: so welcome in and like he learns from our second shooters.
[1:03:27] Speaker 3: He learns from everybody all the time.
[1:03:29] Speaker 6: Yeah, sometimes they think like, oh, I thought he was
[1:03:31] Speaker 6: going to be like, you know, real hard, Yeah, like
[1:03:34] Speaker 6: tough and and micro managing.
[1:03:36] Speaker 4: A hard football coach running like this. Yeah, I'm like,
[1:03:40] Speaker 4: do you.
[1:03:41] Speaker 1: I mean, that's why I brought you, like you know,
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: do you?
[1:03:45] Speaker 5: But you're so calm that it looked like even if
[1:03:47] Speaker 5: somebody was doing a bad job, you'd be like.
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: Okay, well you know that's true. That's a good point.
[1:03:51] Speaker 4: Yeah'd be like, he's never gonna have me.
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: Back, right, You're never gonna call at crazy. Somebody text
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: me was like he's never gonna hire me, and I
[1:04:00] Speaker 1: was like, no, you did a great job. Look that's
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: why they hit you up.
[1:04:03] Speaker 5: You're like, well I couldn't tell because you wouldn't impress
[1:04:05] Speaker 5: you and saying nothing.
[1:04:06] Speaker 6: Right, I'm like, bro, if I ain't say nothing, you
[1:04:09] Speaker 6: did great.
[1:04:11] Speaker 5: Like, yeah, that's my last let me find something else
[1:04:15] Speaker 5: to do with my life.
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, let make such another career.
[1:04:18] Speaker 5: But it's hilarious. And so what has what has been
[1:04:21] Speaker 5: the most impactful. Let me ask you this that y'all
[1:04:24] Speaker 5: have conversations around kids. Did y'all say that, hey, we
[1:04:27] Speaker 5: want to have two kids, three kids, one kids, we're
[1:04:29] Speaker 5: going to wait five years after marriage? Like what was
[1:04:32] Speaker 5: that conversation around kids?
[1:04:36] Speaker 3: So yeah, so we wanted kids immediately after and we
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: we tried for three and a half years, almost four years.
[1:04:43] Speaker 3: So it was I think photography, wedding photography kept us busy.
[1:04:47] Speaker 3: We were always on the road. It like kept our
[1:04:50] Speaker 3: minds busy. But every time we would see our couples,
[1:04:55] Speaker 3: they got married, they got engaged, they got married, they
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: had kids and we would like the whole journey.
[1:05:00] Speaker 2: We saw the whole journey.
[1:05:01] Speaker 3: It just made us also want that even more and
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: I think I put a lot of stress on myself
[1:05:06] Speaker 3: for it. Dream was always positive, it's going to happen,
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: It's going to happen. But yeah, we really wanted kids.
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: So we went through We went through IVF to have
[1:05:13] Speaker 3: our son, and we got pregnant naturally.
[1:05:18] Speaker 5: During that process, we hear that I'd be like, a
[1:05:22] Speaker 5: waste of money, You go do all this one minute,
[1:05:24] Speaker 5: next thing, No, God said, I got it. You should
[1:05:26] Speaker 5: have told me I could to say about ten thousand dollars.
[1:05:30] Speaker 3: It was just like a I think we learn about
[1:05:33] Speaker 3: God's timing a lot. I think that was one of
[1:05:36] Speaker 3: the things in our marriage is like God is God
[1:05:38] Speaker 3: a final hour for us, the final hour, our wedding,
[1:05:43] Speaker 3: our baby, our house, the final minute. A miracle just comes.
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: Through every time.
[1:05:51] Speaker 2: But we want more kids.
[1:05:52] Speaker 5: Do you feel did you feel the pressure of family
[1:05:55] Speaker 5: and friends telling y'all, Because it's always like it's the
[1:05:58] Speaker 5: when are you when you're gonna get married, when you're
[1:06:02] Speaker 5: gonna have kids. It's like it's always pushing you to
[1:06:05] Speaker 5: the next thing that you feel the pressure of friends
[1:06:07] Speaker 5: and family, even as you said your mom the man
[1:06:09] Speaker 5: you bring them home is like, hey, give me grand bak.
[1:06:12] Speaker 5: You know, it's like it's that push. Did you feel
[1:06:15] Speaker 5: pressure from your friends and family?
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: Never? I never did. I never. I never cared about Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: maybe did.
[1:06:25] Speaker 3: You I think just being a woman, Yeah, I think,
[1:06:29] Speaker 3: especially there is an age difference, and I was getting
[1:06:32] Speaker 3: closer to that thirty five and a lot. I have
[1:06:36] Speaker 3: friends who don't have kids yet, not married yet, So
[1:06:38] Speaker 3: I don't think I got I felt pressure from them,
[1:06:40] Speaker 3: but just by strangers. Oh, where are you guys gonna
[1:06:42] Speaker 3: have kids? You've been married this long, no kids? When
[1:06:44] Speaker 3: the kids are coming? And I'm like, you don't know know.
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: Where people you don't where people going to be sensitive,
[1:06:49] Speaker 2: sensitive to it.
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: So I I.
[1:06:53] Speaker 3: Love to tell people about our journey and I love
[1:06:56] Speaker 3: to help women, especially if we want more kids and
[1:06:59] Speaker 3: we're not gonna let sign stop us or anything like
[1:07:01] Speaker 3: we know God will make that happen.
[1:07:04] Speaker 2: So but pressure from friends and family, No.
[1:07:07] Speaker 3: I know my mom really wanted kids, his mom, his
[1:07:10] Speaker 3: parents too, but it happened.
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: Your season is your season.
[1:07:15] Speaker 6: Nobody can tell you when, when or when not you
[1:07:18] Speaker 6: should have, you know, kids, get married, get a house,
[1:07:21] Speaker 6: all that good stuff. It's all. Everybody has their own season,
[1:07:24] Speaker 6: you know. So I never let that pressure.
[1:07:25] Speaker 3: And I feel like the timing of it, like as
[1:07:28] Speaker 3: much as we wanted kids, or I really wanted a child.
[1:07:32] Speaker 4: We were business working hard man.
[1:07:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't the time. It wasn't the time.
[1:07:39] Speaker 5: See, even in this interview, I wanted to tiptoe around
[1:07:44] Speaker 5: even asking about kids. I was like, I think they
[1:07:46] Speaker 5: have a kid, but I'm not sure because the way
[1:07:48] Speaker 5: you frame a question can cause trauma. If I can
[1:07:51] Speaker 5: say so when y'all having kids, but you already said
[1:07:55] Speaker 5: that y'all have a three year old, just celebrated the birthday.
[1:07:57] Speaker 5: So I was like, cool, I can talk about kids,
[1:08:00] Speaker 5: but I don't want to. I want to frame it
[1:08:02] Speaker 5: where it's like, so, what was the conversation around having kids?
[1:08:06] Speaker 5: Instead of saying, so the kid is only three years old?
[1:08:08] Speaker 5: What took y'all so long? Like all that is a
[1:08:10] Speaker 5: trump You're like, look at me, took me a long
[1:08:12] Speaker 5: and realize it's bad. So I'll wait, let you say something,
[1:08:16] Speaker 5: and then ask you what conversations that y'all have around kids?
[1:08:21] Speaker 5: Because it could be a situation where say that y'all
[1:08:24] Speaker 5: don't have kids, say that you want kids and he
[1:08:27] Speaker 5: don't because he's so focused on working. He's like, this
[1:08:30] Speaker 5: is not the time. I'm give me to year nine,
[1:08:34] Speaker 5: we're gonna have kids? And you like, that's so insensitive
[1:08:37] Speaker 5: as a man when you don't know, I got to
[1:08:38] Speaker 5: go talk to mynocologists and they're gonna be like, hey,
[1:08:41] Speaker 5: you know you you you you in that whole space
[1:08:43] Speaker 5: of a geriatric childbirth.
[1:08:44] Speaker 4: You know that, right, And he like, don't listen to them.
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: God got you.
[1:08:47] Speaker 5: And You're like, but I'm going to be the one
[1:08:49] Speaker 5: caring it. And then I say something, you know, out
[1:08:53] Speaker 5: of ignorance, I'll just say it like that, not knowing
[1:08:57] Speaker 5: how to frame a question, like so when y'all gonna
[1:08:59] Speaker 5: have kids? And then you look looking at him like when,
[1:09:01] Speaker 5: and he looked like to let the dude give.
[1:09:03] Speaker 4: Us an argument.
[1:09:04] Speaker 5: Regular, Yeah, y'all leave the studio. She was like, see,
[1:09:08] Speaker 5: I told you people keep asking. You don't have to
[1:09:09] Speaker 5: deal with all that. That's the whole argument, Your whole
[1:09:11] Speaker 5: experience on Dear Future Wivy podcast a whole negative thing.
[1:09:15] Speaker 5: And I was just like I just asked the question's
[1:09:17] Speaker 5: wrong with all you gotta do?
[1:09:18] Speaker 1: So they read it.
[1:09:19] Speaker 6: That's how you know couple's never talked about it. If
[1:09:21] Speaker 6: you ask a question and then we both go.
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: So when you know that a couple and prepared for it,
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, oh that was bad.
[1:09:32] Speaker 4: What everybody? Well, ignore that last question.
[1:09:34] Speaker 1: You know it's good out of that album.
[1:09:36] Speaker 4: But I love that. I hear so many women talking.
[1:09:40] Speaker 5: About IVF because it's so and then you will hear
[1:09:44] Speaker 5: certain people. I remember I had people on my podcast,
[1:09:47] Speaker 5: uh and about three years ago, and this one lady,
[1:09:51] Speaker 5: she was a virgin, said that she's gonna freeze her eggs.
[1:09:53] Speaker 5: She's forty. She was forty two years old or forty something.
[1:09:57] Speaker 5: And then people was like, that's not a guy.
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: You shouldn't be freezing your eggs.
[1:10:02] Speaker 4: That's losing faith God.
[1:10:03] Speaker 5: If he wanted you to have kids, you to have
[1:10:05] Speaker 5: kids now and all this, and I'd be like, well,
[1:10:06] Speaker 5: y'all quit saying this is foolish. It's like, why are
[1:10:09] Speaker 5: you saying that. I believe that modern technology is around
[1:10:13] Speaker 5: for what it is. If that's the journey, it don't
[1:10:16] Speaker 5: stop God from still doing it. God don't say ooh
[1:10:18] Speaker 5: you froze your eggs Now I can't get you pregnant
[1:10:20] Speaker 5: normal naturally, I can't do it on the messed up.
[1:10:22] Speaker 5: I can't do it because you went and did that.
[1:10:24] Speaker 4: God, be like, until you.
[1:10:26] Speaker 3: Go through it, you just you can. Because I said
[1:10:30] Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna do IVF. I prayed against it so much.
[1:10:33] Speaker 3: I prayed against a sea section. I had a sea section.
[1:10:36] Speaker 3: And I remember I didn't even want to google sea
[1:10:38] Speaker 3: section because I didn't want to even put that in
[1:10:40] Speaker 3: your spirit, in my spirit because then you're but I
[1:10:43] Speaker 3: had to go through one.
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: But when you know that you're going.
[1:10:46] Speaker 3: To carry a child earthside, like there's nothing everything changing
[1:10:50] Speaker 3: that you wouldn't do to get to that child, you know.
[1:10:54] Speaker 3: So I, as I get older, I realized, you don't
[1:10:58] Speaker 3: know what people go through. Yes even recently. We just
[1:11:01] Speaker 3: recently experienced a loss of pregnancy loss. And it was
[1:11:03] Speaker 3: like when you called, when you called reim, that got
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: me out of bed to know that God is still
[1:11:12] Speaker 3: alive and well and all right, let's gonna do this,
[1:11:17] Speaker 3: but like you don't.
[1:11:18] Speaker 6: Know we're here now, You're good, You're good.
[1:11:22] Speaker 3: This podcast before no, because like the month of September
[1:11:25] Speaker 3: was probably the hardest month, one of the toughest months
[1:11:29] Speaker 3: I've gone through in a long time. And I was questioning, God, why, why?
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: Why?
[1:11:34] Speaker 3: But I think two days later, like spoke to you
[1:11:38] Speaker 3: and you invited us here, and I was like why why?
[1:11:43] Speaker 6: Was that was the question you get back when we
[1:11:45] Speaker 6: got off from a call and I told saying that
[1:11:49] Speaker 6: was like, ma, you know you got to be out
[1:11:52] Speaker 6: there future wifey podcast, Like I didn't.
[1:11:54] Speaker 3: I didn't.
[1:11:55] Speaker 2: I had to have surgery and everything.
[1:11:56] Speaker 1: And I was like why. I'm like, don't ask why
[1:12:00] Speaker 1: there it is, That's.
[1:12:01] Speaker 3: Just that's just how seeing the couples on there, they
[1:12:04] Speaker 3: got right, And I'm like, there you go comparing yourself
[1:12:07] Speaker 3: it is.
[1:12:08] Speaker 6: I'm like, no, that's just how God works. And I'm like, ah, man,
[1:12:11] Speaker 6: now she crying. I was getting me emotional. I'm like, ah,
[1:12:14] Speaker 6: you know, I don't like you know, you know what
[1:12:16] Speaker 6: I'm saying, accountant right numbers.
[1:12:20] Speaker 3: But there's a there's a timing for everything. There's there's God.
[1:12:24] Speaker 3: I just knew that there had to be a bigger
[1:12:26] Speaker 3: purpose and there's a lesson in it. And we're just
[1:12:29] Speaker 3: gonna keep moving forward. We're gonna keep doing what we
[1:12:31] Speaker 3: have to do. And we know that something, something big
[1:12:34] Speaker 3: is gonna happen.
[1:12:35] Speaker 5: So that is why white thing God got y'all on
[1:12:37] Speaker 5: here today.
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[1:12:40] Speaker 3: I just think. I just think the hard work and
[1:12:43] Speaker 3: the prayers and and just keeping our head down and
[1:12:46] Speaker 3: just doing with truly what we love brought us here.
[1:12:50] Speaker 3: And I'll always question God on that. But at the
[1:12:54] Speaker 3: same time, I'm like, I knew that. I knew that
[1:12:56] Speaker 3: he could do this. I know he could do more.
[1:12:58] Speaker 3: And my mom watches the show. I told her, she
[1:13:03] Speaker 3: was just like, Okay, Sandy, God, you see, don't play
[1:13:08] Speaker 3: with God. God is a god. And yeah, there has
[1:13:12] Speaker 3: to be a reason why we're here. And we just
[1:13:15] Speaker 3: thank you so much for the opportunity and we can't
[1:13:18] Speaker 3: wait to capture your beautiful wedding.
[1:13:20] Speaker 6: And man, I'm looking forward to that. People ask people ask,
[1:13:25] Speaker 6: you know, what's the secret?
[1:13:26] Speaker 3: Man?
[1:13:27] Speaker 6: You know, how do you get to where you are?
[1:13:28] Speaker 6: What's the secret? What's the secret? What's the secret?
[1:13:30] Speaker 1: And I'm like, there really is no secret. Man. I
[1:13:33] Speaker 1: really don't hope.
[1:13:34] Speaker 6: I don't sound cliche, but you really just got to
[1:13:36] Speaker 6: keep working hard. I just knew that this is what
[1:13:38] Speaker 6: I wanted to do. I just wanted to shoot weddings
[1:13:41] Speaker 6: and work really hard at it, and Sandy knows I'm
[1:13:44] Speaker 6: obsessed with with what we do. And when we got
[1:13:49] Speaker 6: this opportunity, I was just like, it's just a product
[1:13:52] Speaker 6: of continuous hard work. You know, I didn't know that
[1:13:56] Speaker 6: this was going to happen today. I didn't know that
[1:13:59] Speaker 6: at you know, Tember thirty, twenty twenty five. Then I'll
[1:14:02] Speaker 6: be on their Future WIFEI podcasts. But it's just a
[1:14:04] Speaker 6: product of hard work. But it sounds so cliche, and
[1:14:07] Speaker 6: it sounds so and if.
[1:14:08] Speaker 3: We make it look like, yeah, a lot behind closed
[1:14:12] Speaker 3: doors that people don't see, it's so much.
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: Just because they look easy doesn't mean it is.
[1:14:16] Speaker 3: He spends many nights not even home. These weddings are
[1:14:21] Speaker 3: long long. For some reason, he's been getting like seventeen
[1:14:24] Speaker 3: hour wedding days, like there was some reason something going
[1:14:27] Speaker 3: longer and longer, and another state, there's just a lot of.
[1:14:31] Speaker 5: Got a wedding to shoot right after shoot my wedding
[1:14:33] Speaker 5: on the twenty second and gott be are you laying
[1:14:36] Speaker 5: on the twenty third?
[1:14:36] Speaker 1: Yeah? I said, how you gonna do that? That's none
[1:14:39] Speaker 1: of your businesses?
[1:14:40] Speaker 3: No, No, he's not.
[1:14:41] Speaker 2: He's gonna do it.
[1:14:41] Speaker 3: He's gonna do it. Yeah, and he never complains, like never,
[1:14:48] Speaker 3: I need a little headache.
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: And I'm like, see how sensitive.
[1:14:51] Speaker 5: So like what I said, I was like, well, dang,
[1:14:53] Speaker 5: so I'm gonna make sure I end a little early,
[1:14:54] Speaker 5: let them out because.
[1:14:55] Speaker 1: My bro.
[1:14:58] Speaker 4: I would tell you some gona be transparent. So this
[1:14:59] Speaker 4: is I was doing.
[1:15:00] Speaker 1: I said, Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna.
[1:15:03] Speaker 5: Do the the the send off a little early, Gonna
[1:15:06] Speaker 5: do a mock send off so I can let Rhim
[1:15:09] Speaker 5: go back to the hotel and if he want to
[1:15:10] Speaker 5: book a flight to leave earlier, he can catch a
[1:15:12] Speaker 5: red eye. But we're gonna do it the sent that's
[1:15:17] Speaker 5: very thoughtful. Off early, and we'll tell everybody go outside
[1:15:22] Speaker 5: and then we'll do the send off.
[1:15:23] Speaker 4: We actually drive around, drive back around.
[1:15:25] Speaker 5: Then we'll finish up the night, but we'll let him
[1:15:27] Speaker 5: be done at that point.
[1:15:28] Speaker 4: Wow, that's how my brain worked.
[1:15:31] Speaker 1: You don't got it? Said that.
[1:15:33] Speaker 5: I was like, but that's my brain. That's just how
[1:15:34] Speaker 5: my brain worked.
[1:15:36] Speaker 4: So I do that. And I was like, okay, that's
[1:15:37] Speaker 4: what we'll do.
[1:15:38] Speaker 3: You know, how we look at it, how he got
[1:15:41] Speaker 3: how is his wedding.
[1:15:42] Speaker 1: The only day that free on a Saturday?
[1:15:47] Speaker 3: Like, how was that day free on a Saturday?
[1:15:49] Speaker 2: So we look at it was meant to be. That's
[1:15:51] Speaker 2: how we look at it.
[1:15:52] Speaker 5: Let me tell you this, because me and my fiance
[1:15:55] Speaker 5: talked about this. We said, we only want people that's
[1:15:57] Speaker 5: rocking with us. Even then was that we talked to
[1:16:00] Speaker 5: if we called the venue and they were booked that day,
[1:16:02] Speaker 5: So it wasn't that that we found a being. He said,
[1:16:04] Speaker 5: hold on, how is this the only Saturday we had
[1:16:07] Speaker 5: free at this venue? And I was like, it's ours.
[1:16:10] Speaker 5: I mean every time it's been we normally I'm talking
[1:16:12] Speaker 5: about even the rehearsal dinner. They were like, let me
[1:16:16] Speaker 5: see we got this like this abnormal that we free
[1:16:19] Speaker 5: on that Saturday. And I was just like, and I
[1:16:22] Speaker 5: told her that. She was like, well we're playing this week.
[1:16:25] Speaker 5: Everybody keeps saying you normally need six months to a
[1:16:27] Speaker 5: year plan. I said, it's no way on God's green earth,
[1:16:29] Speaker 5: I want to think about a wedding for a whole year.
[1:16:31] Speaker 4: I just don't have time.
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: Ye yeah, done and be done.
[1:16:35] Speaker 5: I said no, no, no, no, And then and then
[1:16:38] Speaker 5: even that I said, with y'all I said, I mean,
[1:16:41] Speaker 5: if he ain't available, he just he just he just
[1:16:43] Speaker 5: can't do it, you know what I'm saying. And I said, well,
[1:16:46] Speaker 5: we're just gonna try to figure it out. Our wedding
[1:16:48] Speaker 5: planner sent an email saying that hey, we're going to
[1:16:53] Speaker 5: have We're going to have a meeting with she was
[1:16:57] Speaker 5: going to have a meeting with you without me, And
[1:16:59] Speaker 5: I said, hold on, that's the guy I was just
[1:17:01] Speaker 5: showing my fiance yesterday on YouTube. And she was like, oh, well, wow,
[1:17:06] Speaker 5: I'm glad you're already liking stuff. And then she said,
[1:17:09] Speaker 5: I said, I'm gonna be on that call. She said,
[1:17:11] Speaker 5: you want to? I said, absolutely, I want to be
[1:17:12] Speaker 5: on this call. I said, I want to be on
[1:17:14] Speaker 5: this call. She said okay. She already had it planned
[1:17:17] Speaker 5: and everything, already had a photographer that was going to
[1:17:21] Speaker 5: shoot the wedding for me free of charge, and they like,
[1:17:25] Speaker 5: I got you, I'm doing it.
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: You know.
[1:17:26] Speaker 5: We did this big thing in twenty twenty twenty where
[1:17:30] Speaker 5: I gifted three couples to get married free during the pandemic,
[1:17:34] Speaker 5: and I just paid for it. And then I did
[1:17:36] Speaker 5: I had this thing on social media where my friends
[1:17:38] Speaker 5: we did a gofund me and we paid for these
[1:17:40] Speaker 5: three couples to have a group wedding. And then God
[1:17:42] Speaker 5: told me one day, he said, you know what, since
[1:17:45] Speaker 5: you look out for everybody else, I'm gonna take care
[1:17:46] Speaker 5: of you when it's time to get When you tied,
[1:17:48] Speaker 5: you know your time to get married. And I said,
[1:17:51] Speaker 5: whatever I said, because I got some. My taste is
[1:17:53] Speaker 5: a little high. I like the best of the best.
[1:17:55] Speaker 5: He said, you think you serving a god, you can't
[1:17:58] Speaker 5: out give me. Yeah, but I don't want to be
[1:18:00] Speaker 5: let down. So then when I literally saw rem, it
[1:18:04] Speaker 5: wasn't even a thought to even reach out to him.
[1:18:06] Speaker 5: I'm telling you, I was like, oh, he cost too much.
[1:18:09] Speaker 5: Not doing that, That's exactly what I did, I said,
[1:18:12] Speaker 5: not doing it. I didn't DM him, I didn't reach out,
[1:18:14] Speaker 5: I didn't inquire. I didn't look at a website. I
[1:18:17] Speaker 5: didn't do nothing. And our call was the first time
[1:18:19] Speaker 5: I looked at the website. I said, now, work, look,
[1:18:20] Speaker 5: we're the website. And I started looking at it because
[1:18:22] Speaker 5: I didn't even think about him. I looked at his stuff.
[1:18:25] Speaker 5: I said, I got this other lady that she's gonna
[1:18:30] Speaker 5: shoot it for free. I see her work. She does
[1:18:31] Speaker 5: great work. So then I end up saying, well, you know,
[1:18:34] Speaker 5: if I talked to Ring, I said, all right, you
[1:18:35] Speaker 5: can shoot our engagement shoot and then I got ream
[1:18:38] Speaker 5: shooting this wedding.
[1:18:39] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:18:39] Speaker 5: But that's how it happened. I literally God had to
[1:18:43] Speaker 5: push my faith to the level of Ring to be
[1:18:46] Speaker 5: able to say I wanted this and that's and I
[1:18:49] Speaker 5: talked to him.
[1:18:50] Speaker 4: He's like, yeah, we opened that, do I said, Ren.
[1:18:52] Speaker 4: When I say my fiance.
[1:18:54] Speaker 5: Was so happy, she said, oh please please, She said
[1:18:57] Speaker 5: he's available. I said, yeah, he available, Well, I said.
[1:18:59] Speaker 5: She was so excited. But when I saw y'all videos,
[1:19:02] Speaker 5: I was like, oh, they top notch. I said this,
[1:19:05] Speaker 5: and I was telling me, I was like, this is what
[1:19:06] Speaker 5: I'm talking about photography. This is the type of photography
[1:19:10] Speaker 5: that I could rest in, where I could sit back
[1:19:12] Speaker 5: and be like you got me.
[1:19:15] Speaker 1: I ain't got to be the question did you get
[1:19:17] Speaker 1: your shot?
[1:19:18] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[1:19:18] Speaker 5: Type photograph you can rest and put that in the
[1:19:20] Speaker 5: photographer you can rest in. This is an endorsement for
[1:19:23] Speaker 5: Ring photography. This is the type of photography you can
[1:19:26] Speaker 5: rest at. It bring photographer to stand for rest and
[1:19:29] Speaker 5: so not just reliving. This stands for rest yes, that's
[1:19:33] Speaker 5: what it was. Because I sat back and I said,
[1:19:36] Speaker 5: as a photographer, I will be very ain't the watch
[1:19:39] Speaker 5: like why didn't they shoot that? Why don't they do that?
[1:19:41] Speaker 1: Why? Why?
[1:19:42] Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, and my brain to be
[1:19:44] Speaker 5: thinking like that. And then when I saw him, I said, Oh,
[1:19:47] Speaker 5: I can just be a groom. I can just sit
[1:19:49] Speaker 5: back and be like, oh, he gonna capture. All I
[1:19:51] Speaker 5: gotta do is stay in the moment and let him
[1:19:53] Speaker 5: capture that moment. And then I said, oh, I'm in
[1:19:56] Speaker 5: good hands.
[1:19:57] Speaker 1: Period.
[1:19:57] Speaker 3: You don't know what God is on behind doors behind
[1:20:01] Speaker 3: and we've been doing this ten years and it's.
[1:20:05] Speaker 5: And I'm gonna come back and answer the question about
[1:20:07] Speaker 5: why God got y'all here. He got y'all here because
[1:20:10] Speaker 5: it's twofold a to see a kingdom couple know how
[1:20:14] Speaker 5: to do business together where they are able to respect
[1:20:17] Speaker 5: and admire each other's strengths and weaknesses. The other part
[1:20:20] Speaker 5: about how we got to the very end about IVV,
[1:20:23] Speaker 5: if you understood how many women deal with that. My
[1:20:28] Speaker 5: daughter just gave birth to my first grandchild in August
[1:20:33] Speaker 5: August of fifteenth, and she struggled so much during her
[1:20:38] Speaker 5: pregnancy she ended up having a dermoid cyst. The first
[1:20:41] Speaker 5: year she was married, she had a drmoid cyst that
[1:20:43] Speaker 5: took away her whole right ovary. And now here's my
[1:20:46] Speaker 5: first time hearing a woman share the complexities and the
[1:20:50] Speaker 5: pain of childbirth or the desire to have kids and
[1:20:54] Speaker 5: trying to reconcile whether or not they are able to
[1:20:57] Speaker 5: have kids. So I'm talking to my daughter and she's sharing, said, Dad,
[1:21:00] Speaker 5: I don't know what I would do if I could
[1:21:02] Speaker 5: never have a kid. And I said, and I want
[1:21:05] Speaker 5: the man explaining away and be like, well, listen, your
[1:21:07] Speaker 5: value is greater just giving kids or whatever, and you
[1:21:10] Speaker 5: don't have to wear And I sat down. I said,
[1:21:12] Speaker 5: just don't try to solve it. Just listen to it.
[1:21:16] Speaker 5: And I listened to her crow on that phone, and
[1:21:19] Speaker 5: I shed tears and I cried, and then I began
[1:21:22] Speaker 5: to war in prayer. I had two people that were
[1:21:24] Speaker 5: going through that situation at the same time, and just
[1:21:29] Speaker 5: on the transparent standpoint. Even my fiance was freezing her
[1:21:33] Speaker 5: eggs around that time, and this before we were just
[1:21:36] Speaker 5: friends at that time, and so she was freezing the eggs.
[1:21:38] Speaker 5: My friend Brandon and Destiny, they just had another miscarriage,
[1:21:44] Speaker 5: and my daughter had that DERMOI assist that took away
[1:21:48] Speaker 5: her ovary, all in the same a month apart from
[1:21:50] Speaker 5: each other, and I began to pray. I was alive
[1:21:53] Speaker 5: one day on Instagram and I was in the parking lot.
[1:21:56] Speaker 5: People probably don't even where I was in the parking
[1:21:58] Speaker 5: lot of the hospital where my daughter was about to
[1:22:00] Speaker 5: go get have surgery and cause at first they thought
[1:22:03] Speaker 5: it was like a little little cist or something. And
[1:22:05] Speaker 5: that thing was a five pound dermoid cyst that ate away.
[1:22:08] Speaker 5: I don't even know what the dermoids cists was. I
[1:22:10] Speaker 5: had to research it. It grows hair, it grows to me.
[1:22:12] Speaker 4: It does all.
[1:22:13] Speaker 5: I said, what in the world things it's eating off
[1:22:16] Speaker 5: of you?
[1:22:17] Speaker 1: And I said, oh, my God, that's in my daughter.
[1:22:19] Speaker 5: And so I sat in that parking lot and I
[1:22:22] Speaker 5: began to war in the spirit. I began to pray
[1:22:24] Speaker 5: about I said, I'm tired of the devil coming against
[1:22:28] Speaker 5: the wounds of kingdom couples and trying to stop us
[1:22:33] Speaker 5: from giving birth to destiny. And I began to pray
[1:22:36] Speaker 5: and pray and pray and war in the spirit. And
[1:22:37] Speaker 5: I went in there, and then the doctor told my daughter.
[1:22:40] Speaker 5: He's like, hey, listen, if you really want to have kids,
[1:22:44] Speaker 5: y'all better get at it, like right now.
[1:22:46] Speaker 1: She's like, I don't understand.
[1:22:47] Speaker 5: We've been trying all the time, and so she said,
[1:22:49] Speaker 5: all right, let's be intentional. Had a couple of miscarriages
[1:22:52] Speaker 5: along the way up until last year, and then ended
[1:22:56] Speaker 5: up sticking this time. And I was like, I was like,
[1:23:00] Speaker 5: I don't want to get too excited. I'm gonna sit back.
[1:23:01] Speaker 5: I'm gonna let her just go through her journey and
[1:23:05] Speaker 5: she'll come on here and she'll share her full story.
[1:23:07] Speaker 4: But August the fifteenth.
[1:23:09] Speaker 5: Our child was due on September the fifteenth, and they said,
[1:23:14] Speaker 5: we gotta go ahead and induce labor because you're at
[1:23:17] Speaker 5: the cusp of pre and clamsia.
[1:23:19] Speaker 4: Because her blood pressure was high.
[1:23:20] Speaker 5: So they said, hey, we're gonna go induce labor, but
[1:23:23] Speaker 5: we needed to get too closer to the fifteen whatever
[1:23:25] Speaker 5: that week is. They said we needed to get two
[1:23:28] Speaker 5: more days. And then that third day they were able
[1:23:31] Speaker 5: to induce it because it was it was just she
[1:23:33] Speaker 5: was dilating so solo, and then she started dilating that
[1:23:36] Speaker 5: third day. Boom child was born on the fifteenth, healthy,
[1:23:40] Speaker 5: that she didn't have to stay and the nick you
[1:23:42] Speaker 5: at all just healthy came home. Claire Elizabeth, the whitest
[1:23:48] Speaker 5: name she could find. Make sure she is employable when
[1:23:51] Speaker 5: she gets older. So Claire Elizabeth.
[1:23:56] Speaker 1: So that's my grand baby.
[1:23:57] Speaker 4: That's a test one.
[1:23:58] Speaker 3: So that's why you Oh yeah, yeah, because I honestly so.
[1:24:04] Speaker 3: After we had our son, we told God we would
[1:24:06] Speaker 3: never ever complain about having a child again. We have
[1:24:10] Speaker 3: the embryo that we were supposed to put back in
[1:24:12] Speaker 3: it's been frozen for since twenty twenty one, and we
[1:24:16] Speaker 3: know that he would do it naturally, and that's what happened.
[1:24:19] Speaker 3: But I was so shocked. I spent two and a
[1:24:23] Speaker 3: half months shocked that I was pregnant naturally out of nowhere,
[1:24:28] Speaker 3: like we had just finished No, seriously, like I just
[1:24:32] Speaker 3: could not believe it. And it wasn't until we saw
[1:24:37] Speaker 3: several heartbeats we were good. I started to say, Okay, God,
[1:24:40] Speaker 3: I guess you're gonna do this. I guess I'm a
[1:24:41] Speaker 3: normal woman who can conceive naturally. And it got stripped
[1:24:47] Speaker 3: from me and I questioned God a lot, and I
[1:24:50] Speaker 3: was like, God, there has to be a bigger thing
[1:24:54] Speaker 3: that you have for me because why would you let
[1:24:56] Speaker 3: me see heartbeats and get excited? And I told you,
[1:25:01] Speaker 3: I just want to know how it feels to accidentally
[1:25:03] Speaker 3: get pregnant. A lot of women don't don't understand how
[1:25:06] Speaker 3: how big of a blessing that is. Women are trying
[1:25:09] Speaker 3: over and over and there's an attack on fruitfulness right now,
[1:25:15] Speaker 3: there is there has to be this story is either
[1:25:18] Speaker 3: women are not getting married not you know, they don't
[1:25:21] Speaker 3: even know if they're going to see meet a man
[1:25:24] Speaker 3: they're doing, single mother by choice, or married couples who
[1:25:28] Speaker 3: are like when women and I got before we got married,
[1:25:31] Speaker 3: we were we abstained for over a year. We didn't
[1:25:34] Speaker 3: even kiss till the till the wedding. We spent over
[1:25:37] Speaker 3: a year and a half not kissing because we're like
[1:25:39] Speaker 3: we want to be obedient. Forgives for everything we did.
[1:25:42] Speaker 3: And it was like I don't know if I felt
[1:25:44] Speaker 3: like that was okay, God, you you.
[1:25:46] Speaker 5: I own this. I mean I deserve this. Now I
[1:25:49] Speaker 5: honored you in this, and this is this is the repayment.
[1:25:52] Speaker 3: Like there's people that don't try, there's people that are
[1:25:54] Speaker 3: on drugs that get pregnant. Like it was just so
[1:25:56] Speaker 3: many things. I just say why, why me? I've been
[1:25:58] Speaker 3: through infertility. Why would you take this from me right now?
[1:26:02] Speaker 3: And I'm not gonna lie. I was in bed and
[1:26:05] Speaker 3: Reim said, we're going on this podcast and I said, pushing.
[1:26:13] Speaker 2: You gotta keep pushing, you gotta. Yeah, I don't think I.
[1:26:16] Speaker 3: Was going to say this on this podcast today, but
[1:26:18] Speaker 3: women like we need to take control of our fertility.
[1:26:21] Speaker 3: And Ream said something good too, because we went to
[1:26:23] Speaker 3: the doctor last week just so we can, you know,
[1:26:25] Speaker 3: get back and he said, why are they only talking
[1:26:28] Speaker 3: to you? Why why you can say this?
[1:26:31] Speaker 1: We can get into that and get into it. He's
[1:26:33] Speaker 1: like yeah, he.
[1:26:34] Speaker 3: Was like, that is not just want them to say everything,
[1:26:38] Speaker 3: like the whole I only got to go in and
[1:26:40] Speaker 3: do one thing you have to do scraping up your uterus.
[1:26:44] Speaker 3: Just all these tests.
[1:26:45] Speaker 6: And then the guy they talked to them for ten seconds.
[1:26:48] Speaker 6: We're just going to get a sperm sample and well
[1:26:50] Speaker 6: just see.
[1:26:51] Speaker 1: How it's going.
[1:26:52] Speaker 2: My majority of miscarriagters is caused by the man.
[1:26:56] Speaker 3: Yeah it could be, but like, yeah, I know, no.
[1:27:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah.
[1:27:01] Speaker 6: I think I think that's why a lot of couples
[1:27:04] Speaker 6: get misinformed, because the focus is so much on the
[1:27:08] Speaker 6: woman that the guy doesn't think he needs to put
[1:27:10] Speaker 6: into work, put in the work for himself.
[1:27:12] Speaker 1: Literally, yeah so.
[1:27:14] Speaker 6: Literally yeah, so like when they say so many things
[1:27:21] Speaker 6: about the women, the women, the woman, the woman, but
[1:27:23] Speaker 6: they have no they don't they don't talk to the guy.
[1:27:26] Speaker 6: So the guy just thinks that he can just go
[1:27:28] Speaker 6: about his regular day and it has nothing to do
[1:27:31] Speaker 6: with him. But the sperm has every much to do
[1:27:32] Speaker 6: with fertility as much the woman does. It's probably even
[1:27:37] Speaker 6: more so. So when I heard that, all I kept
[1:27:40] Speaker 6: thinking was like, man, she hasn't asked me any questions
[1:27:42] Speaker 6: yet she has to ask the guy nothing, nothing, nothing
[1:27:45] Speaker 6: like what are you eating? You know, what was your
[1:27:47] Speaker 6: last sperm test? All that good stuff. It's it's very
[1:27:50] Speaker 6: important that we get tested as well, and we do
[1:27:53] Speaker 6: our part because if if our sperm isn't good and
[1:27:57] Speaker 6: the sperm and egg meat it's not good for that
[1:28:00] Speaker 6: defeat is in the DNA, and that's how a lot
[1:28:03] Speaker 6: of miscarriages happened.
[1:28:05] Speaker 5: Absolutely, so I'm glad you actually gave voice to that,
[1:28:07] Speaker 5: because again, you're absolutely right, and even the loss of
[1:28:11] Speaker 5: a kid through a miscarriage or whatever it So I
[1:28:14] Speaker 5: was like, oh, I'm so sorry you had to go
[1:28:15] Speaker 5: do that. And he just said over that to the woman.
[1:28:17] Speaker 5: He's just over just like so sorry. He just didn't
[1:28:19] Speaker 5: like he like he didn't feel nothing, Like he's not traumatized,
[1:28:22] Speaker 5: Like he's not hurt, Like he's not afraid of trying
[1:28:24] Speaker 5: again either.
[1:28:25] Speaker 1: It's just like, oh, I'm.
[1:28:26] Speaker 3: Just when we got the oh there's no heartbeat, the
[1:28:30] Speaker 3: look on his face and Reim holds it.
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: All together because I had to be strong for her.
[1:28:36] Speaker 3: But your face, I don't think we ever imagine that
[1:28:40] Speaker 3: we could ever hear those words like you going like okay,
[1:28:44] Speaker 3: we're going to see how big and you know it
[1:28:46] Speaker 3: started looking it looked like started looking like a baby
[1:28:49] Speaker 3: and no heartbeat, realm face like I had to ask
[1:28:53] Speaker 3: him for several days, are you okay?
[1:28:55] Speaker 1: Are you good?
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: Like I know this is me, but are you good?
[1:28:58] Speaker 4: How did you feel? Realm in that moment?
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: Oh?
[1:29:01] Speaker 6: Man, uh, miserable, devastated. But it's like, as a man,
[1:29:07] Speaker 6: you have to you have to feel strong.
[1:29:10] Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, because because what you're about to start doing
[1:29:14] Speaker 5: is showing what we were taught you gotta be tough.
[1:29:17] Speaker 1: See I felt see as a man, you're supposed to
[1:29:19] Speaker 1: hold it yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's the point I
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: was going to get to. You know, how did you feel? Right?
[1:29:25] Speaker 1: I felt?
[1:29:26] Speaker 6: I felt devastated, But society wants you as a man
[1:29:29] Speaker 6: to hold it up and be strong. You get what
[1:29:31] Speaker 6: I'm saying. So no, I was. I was torn apart,
[1:29:34] Speaker 6: you know, I was. I was devastated. I was miserable,
[1:29:38] Speaker 6: and I wanted her to know that as well, that
[1:29:39] Speaker 6: I'm very sad as well, and I don't want her
[1:29:42] Speaker 6: to feel so like that I'm that I'm so strong
[1:29:46] Speaker 6: and confident about this, that she that that that she
[1:29:49] Speaker 6: doesn't think I'm hurting as well, because I think.
[1:29:51] Speaker 1: That gives her level of comfort.
[1:29:53] Speaker 6: So because I was so hurt, I think that gave
[1:29:56] Speaker 6: her a sense of peace as well in some weird way.
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: Does that make sense? You know?
[1:30:00] Speaker 4: So?
[1:30:00] Speaker 5: So why why why do we say I have to
[1:30:03] Speaker 5: be strong for her?
[1:30:05] Speaker 4: What does that mean?
[1:30:06] Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I don't know.
[1:30:07] Speaker 6: I don't know what narrative that's that's created, because like I.
[1:30:10] Speaker 5: Say, I have a I have a family member to say,
[1:30:13] Speaker 5: I'm married to somebody, their mother passed away.
[1:30:17] Speaker 4: And we both experienced the loss. Now I gotta be strong?
[1:30:20] Speaker 5: What what Does that mean I'm not supposed to grieve,
[1:30:23] Speaker 5: I'm not supposed to cry, or I'm supposed to cry
[1:30:25] Speaker 5: just a little bit?
[1:30:26] Speaker 1: Or am I supposed to wait three days before I cried?
[1:30:28] Speaker 4: What does that?
[1:30:30] Speaker 1: That's a great that's a great question.
[1:30:31] Speaker 6: I mean, my mother passed away last year and sorry
[1:30:36] Speaker 6: to hear that, King, thank you, thank And I think
[1:30:39] Speaker 6: I think Sandy great me if I'm wrong, I was
[1:30:42] Speaker 6: trying that was Yeah, that.
[1:30:45] Speaker 3: Was probably the hardest thing in our marriage that we
[1:30:46] Speaker 3: ever had to deal with, because.
[1:30:48] Speaker 2: He is so strong.
[1:30:50] Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's hard for people to really read what
[1:30:53] Speaker 6: I'm going through. So I think she was trying to
[1:30:56] Speaker 6: navigate the best way she can to be strong for me,
[1:31:01] Speaker 6: because I've always been strong for her, So I can
[1:31:05] Speaker 6: kind of tell that she was not trying to be like,
[1:31:07] Speaker 6: you know, are you okay? Do you want to go
[1:31:10] Speaker 6: out and eat? Like what's going on in your mind?
[1:31:14] Speaker 6: And because I knew that I was accepting of it,
[1:31:17] Speaker 6: and I was trying to just make sure that she
[1:31:19] Speaker 6: was like.
[1:31:19] Speaker 1: Okay, I'm okay.
[1:31:21] Speaker 4: How did you process that?
[1:31:23] Speaker 1: Man?
[1:31:23] Speaker 6: Ago processing the death or be hinded? You never did
[1:31:32] Speaker 6: you have a breakdown moment?
[1:31:35] Speaker 1: Oh?
[1:31:35] Speaker 4: All the time. Okay, what she ever see it?
[1:31:37] Speaker 2: No, never seen, never seen it. A lady, a lady.
[1:31:41] Speaker 3: And I thank God for this woman on this on
[1:31:43] Speaker 3: the plane met uh she said, you said.
[1:31:47] Speaker 2: She was in her seventies.
[1:31:48] Speaker 1: Maybe she was the sixties seventies.
[1:31:50] Speaker 3: Flying back sign to Florida to watch her great her grandchildren.
[1:31:55] Speaker 3: And she's having a conversation with and ream says he
[1:31:58] Speaker 3: he's always just trying to take a little nap. It
[1:32:00] Speaker 3: comes from wedding. The uber driver always talking to him.
[1:32:02] Speaker 3: Somebody on the plane. I was talking to him and
[1:32:06] Speaker 3: this woman just was having a conversation and she went
[1:32:09] Speaker 3: about talking about her kids. Got to her grandkids take
[1:32:13] Speaker 3: the bus and she don't know why they take the bus.
[1:32:16] Speaker 3: And she was like, you did you take the bus
[1:32:18] Speaker 3: as a child, and Riheim said, no, my that was
[1:32:20] Speaker 3: one thing my mother did not want us to do.
[1:32:22] Speaker 3: And he broke down. Yeah, it's like it was like
[1:32:27] Speaker 3: the smallest like my mom made sure I never took
[1:32:33] Speaker 3: the bus.
[1:32:34] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:32:34] Speaker 6: When she when she was like when she said that,
[1:32:37] Speaker 6: I was like, she was like, oh man, you better
[1:32:39] Speaker 6: go home and kiss your mom right now. That's what
[1:32:42] Speaker 6: you said verbatim. I'll never forget she said, you better
[1:32:44] Speaker 6: go home and kiss your mom right now. I was like, ah,
[1:32:50] Speaker 6: I can't. You got me, I can't right now?
[1:32:55] Speaker 1: Yeah. And then it's like I said, it's the little things.
[1:32:58] Speaker 6: Like I called my dad on his birthday and like
[1:33:01] Speaker 6: I'm like, you know what you're doing today? And He'll go,
[1:33:04] Speaker 6: you know, I'm cooking. I'm cooking omelet today. You know
[1:33:10] Speaker 6: me her favorite food was me and and her omelet.
[1:33:12] Speaker 6: So I'm just making that for her right now. And
[1:33:14] Speaker 6: I was like, ah, say, any take the phone.
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: I'm going I'm gonna walk out right now.
[1:33:20] Speaker 5: And yeah, King the King, why hasn't your wife saw
[1:33:25] Speaker 5: that level of vulnerability for you to say it just
[1:33:29] Speaker 5: broke down. The lady of the plane saw it. You'll
[1:33:32] Speaker 5: walk off and take a walk. What is it? And
[1:33:35] Speaker 5: what have you been taught? What do you feel you're
[1:33:38] Speaker 5: using language that we've all been taught be strong for
[1:33:41] Speaker 5: her and all that while she's going through what she
[1:33:44] Speaker 5: goes through. You just went through the loss of the
[1:33:48] Speaker 5: matriarch of your family, your mom. Why do you feel
[1:33:52] Speaker 5: like she can't see that?
[1:33:55] Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's nothing
[1:33:57] Speaker 6: I've been taught. It's this kind of like you're like
[1:34:01] Speaker 6: pre wired as a man to be tough for a woman,
[1:34:06] Speaker 6: and if you show that level of vulnerability, I don't
[1:34:10] Speaker 6: know what it is that that society has shaped us
[1:34:14] Speaker 6: to be. It just makes us feel like we can't
[1:34:17] Speaker 6: show that side of us, Like we can't. I always
[1:34:19] Speaker 6: said that I'm never gonna cry on camera. That was
[1:34:21] Speaker 6: always my thing, like, I'm never gonna show tears on camera.
[1:34:24] Speaker 6: You think I'm gonna sit here and have a camera
[1:34:25] Speaker 6: record me and I have tears falling down my eyes. Nah,
[1:34:28] Speaker 6: I've got time for that, you know. But you're about
[1:34:31] Speaker 6: to be a meaning here.
[1:34:32] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:34:32] Speaker 6: The more I've grown and the more I realized, I'm like, no,
[1:34:36] Speaker 6: it's okay, you know what I'm saying. So I've shared
[1:34:39] Speaker 6: with Sandy multiple times that you know, I've broken.
[1:34:42] Speaker 1: Down, and I think it's more than that. I think
[1:34:44] Speaker 1: she's seen it now.
[1:34:45] Speaker 3: Reem has a mister positivity thing that he's always had. Honestly,
[1:34:50] Speaker 3: even his sister tells told him around the time that
[1:34:54] Speaker 3: his mom was sick and was like, you're fake, you
[1:34:57] Speaker 3: have you're too positive. Yeah, He's always been that way,
[1:35:00] Speaker 3: and even with me, I'm always like I show and
[1:35:04] Speaker 3: it's maybe because the way I was raised, I'm a woman,
[1:35:07] Speaker 3: I'm very emotional, and Reim is always there for me
[1:35:10] Speaker 3: to kind of like, okay, you got this. But for himself,
[1:35:14] Speaker 3: he has to be mister positive. He can't let things
[1:35:18] Speaker 3: get in the way because he has a goal. And
[1:35:21] Speaker 3: I think sometimes even if he has a moment where
[1:35:24] Speaker 3: he's crying and all that stuff like it could it
[1:35:27] Speaker 3: could affect him more. He has this goal to be
[1:35:30] Speaker 3: strong for us, our son the business, because that was
[1:35:33] Speaker 3: the first when his mom passed away, that was the
[1:35:35] Speaker 3: first time he had to he couldn't attend a wedding
[1:35:38] Speaker 3: like he had to.
[1:35:40] Speaker 2: He had to. We sent our team and everything, but
[1:35:42] Speaker 2: they wanted him.
[1:35:43] Speaker 6: And you can give me any reason, I'm still gonna
[1:35:45] Speaker 6: be like, yeah, I'm gonna make it happened.
[1:35:49] Speaker 3: He went to a wedding immediately after the funeral. He
[1:35:52] Speaker 3: got on a flight and but that was the same
[1:35:55] Speaker 3: thing that made him so tough on himself because he
[1:35:58] Speaker 3: spent a lot of time not seeing it mom because
[1:36:00] Speaker 3: he was always traveling and his Momkes never said she
[1:36:04] Speaker 3: understood and that you know, she was his biggest fan.
[1:36:08] Speaker 3: So I think even now he's like, I have to
[1:36:10] Speaker 3: keep going for her, but the same thing that you
[1:36:13] Speaker 3: kept going for you. You feel like dang I didn't
[1:36:16] Speaker 3: get to see her. But he has this like just
[1:36:18] Speaker 3: mister positive. Gotta like Kream didn't believe in depression when
[1:36:21] Speaker 3: we met. He didn't believe in stress. He didn't believe stress. No,
[1:36:25] Speaker 3: he didn't. He's like, I don't understand why you stressed?
[1:36:28] Speaker 3: Don't you still gotta do it? Like I get like,
[1:36:31] Speaker 3: I get it. Oh wow, doesn't show stress? He don't.
[1:36:36] Speaker 1: You never you didn't believe?
[1:36:37] Speaker 6: Yeah, I thought I thought stress was more of a choice,
[1:36:39] Speaker 6: but like stress is something you actually feel.
[1:36:46] Speaker 1: Stressed.
[1:36:48] Speaker 3: Stress you like he said, I think you're stressed?
[1:36:54] Speaker 1: He did, He doesn't. He just didn't believe in it.
[1:36:57] Speaker 3: I was just like, how you don't believe in stress?
[1:37:00] Speaker 3: It's a thing to do it.
[1:37:04] Speaker 1: He goes, I have to do it right, here's coming.
[1:37:06] Speaker 4: Stress everything stress.
[1:37:10] Speaker 1: Stress.
[1:37:12] Speaker 3: I think the emotion goes hand in hand with him
[1:37:15] Speaker 3: not feeling like something can stop him from if he
[1:37:19] Speaker 3: gets too sad, too emotional, and he probably can't get
[1:37:22] Speaker 3: the edits out. He can't talk to this client, he
[1:37:24] Speaker 3: can't play with his son, he can't do what to
[1:37:28] Speaker 3: make our relationship. So I think it's more than just
[1:37:31] Speaker 3: being a man and being strong, like you literally do
[1:37:34] Speaker 3: anything to mess up your focus on being positive.
[1:37:39] Speaker 5: And so many men deal with that, And that's why
[1:37:42] Speaker 5: I believe that that's why men died earlier than women,
[1:37:45] Speaker 5: because yeah, you're carrying all of that weight, and they
[1:37:50] Speaker 5: just don't have the place or don't feel like they
[1:37:54] Speaker 5: have the grace to just be human. Well, I think
[1:37:58] Speaker 5: the most powerful thing that Jesus did, even in the
[1:38:01] Speaker 5: Garden of Yosemite, he showed fear.
[1:38:04] Speaker 4: He said, Father, what have you forsaken me?
[1:38:06] Speaker 5: And it said that he cried so hard that and
[1:38:10] Speaker 5: he sweated so hard that blood was in his sweat
[1:38:14] Speaker 5: and was in his tears. When you are that afraid
[1:38:17] Speaker 5: where you're you're sweating and crying blood, it's a deep, deep.
[1:38:23] Speaker 4: Rooted fear and anguish.
[1:38:26] Speaker 5: With men, we carry all of that and then we
[1:38:29] Speaker 5: have heart attacks, have strokes, uh, and we pass away.
[1:38:33] Speaker 5: This man is carrying the weight of his family. This
[1:38:36] Speaker 5: man lost a child with you, this man lost his mother,
[1:38:42] Speaker 5: and be like, yep, I still got to hold together.
[1:38:44] Speaker 1: I gotta be strong for you.
[1:38:45] Speaker 5: And it'll be like, no, you you can cry, It's okay,
[1:38:50] Speaker 5: it's okay, because it's gonna come out. It's gonna come
[1:38:52] Speaker 5: out on an airplane. It's gonna come out with the
[1:38:55] Speaker 5: uper driver. You're gonna come out with your Daddy're gonna
[1:38:57] Speaker 5: walk down the street and them sidewalk, have your tears
[1:39:00] Speaker 5: trailing in front of you as you begin to cry
[1:39:04] Speaker 5: that it's going to come out. And so that's what
[1:39:07] Speaker 5: I want is for men to get the permission. I
[1:39:09] Speaker 5: remember when I cried on the podcast one day and
[1:39:12] Speaker 5: a lot of men DM is like, man, say man,
[1:39:15] Speaker 5: that right.
[1:39:15] Speaker 1: They touched me, bro.
[1:39:16] Speaker 5: They said, I've never I remember one country reached out
[1:39:19] Speaker 5: to me. I was in Jamaica. They said, the men
[1:39:22] Speaker 5: in Jamaica never cry like you do. Not cry you Jamaica. Yeah,
[1:39:28] Speaker 5: end of the episode, there is dang. That's why I.
[1:39:32] Speaker 1: Got you. Yea.
[1:39:36] Speaker 5: Their programmed to not be emotional like that.
[1:39:39] Speaker 4: That's just how it is.
[1:39:41] Speaker 5: And so they was telling me that I did my
[1:39:43] Speaker 5: first retreat in Jamaica and they was like, uh, this
[1:39:46] Speaker 5: one lady used to this girl. She would make the
[1:39:48] Speaker 5: guys that she date watched the episodes because she was like,
[1:39:51] Speaker 5: I want to show them that they can be softer,
[1:39:54] Speaker 5: they can be this. But they're program to be providers.
[1:39:56] Speaker 5: Take care of your family. Don't cry. I ain't nothing
[1:39:59] Speaker 5: to cry about. Get yourself together and and wipe your eyes.
[1:40:02] Speaker 5: As matter of fact, we're real young, even in America,
[1:40:04] Speaker 5: and a lot of times they say boys, don't cry.
[1:40:07] Speaker 5: You can fall off the monkey bars, land on your head,
[1:40:10] Speaker 5: neck broke, and they want you cry. You suck it up.
[1:40:14] Speaker 5: Suck it up, like suck it up to either.
[1:40:18] Speaker 1: It's like that.
[1:40:19] Speaker 5: It's like, how are you programmed not to cry when
[1:40:22] Speaker 5: something hurts? It's just so it goes against all humanity.
[1:40:25] Speaker 5: And so we're training men not to be humans but
[1:40:28] Speaker 5: to be machines. And when you start operating as a machine,
[1:40:31] Speaker 5: then you don't give space for your humanity. And now
[1:40:34] Speaker 5: you're just one You're just a one emotion person. And
[1:40:38] Speaker 5: then that person can show you anger, but can't show
[1:40:41] Speaker 5: you hurt. You know, that person can show you optimism
[1:40:46] Speaker 5: and and hope.
[1:40:48] Speaker 1: Like Reem is. But he's like, I just lost my
[1:40:50] Speaker 1: child too, Like that's my child.
[1:40:52] Speaker 5: I had dreams and ambitions and goals for this kid,
[1:40:55] Speaker 5: and and I lost a kid and be like to
[1:40:58] Speaker 5: be strong for her, Be like, no, you experienced a
[1:41:01] Speaker 5: loss too, And so I want this episode to speak
[1:41:04] Speaker 5: to men, to let them know that you have emotions
[1:41:08] Speaker 5: for a reason. We still got tear ducks. You know,
[1:41:10] Speaker 5: they're there for a reason. They should work. I remember,
[1:41:15] Speaker 5: and I'll conclude on this my dad. I went to
[1:41:18] Speaker 5: my grandma's funeral years ago and I watched my dad.
[1:41:22] Speaker 5: I've never seen my dad cry day in his life.
[1:41:24] Speaker 5: And he got up there on that thing and he
[1:41:26] Speaker 5: got up there to go speak. Then she had a
[1:41:28] Speaker 5: tear or whatever. And I asked, my said, you don't
[1:41:30] Speaker 5: like your mama, but what happened?
[1:41:32] Speaker 1: How did you need not cry?
[1:41:33] Speaker 5: He was just like, I mean, I just just yeah,
[1:41:36] Speaker 5: And I just said wow.
[1:41:38] Speaker 1: And I sat there and I said, this is interesting.
[1:41:41] Speaker 5: And the one time I saw my dad cry was
[1:41:44] Speaker 5: a few years later when my sister half sister, that's
[1:41:49] Speaker 5: what you want to call it, but my sister, through
[1:41:50] Speaker 5: my daughter, through my dad in Houston. She was like,
[1:41:53] Speaker 5: I always wanted to have Thanksgiving with our dad.
[1:41:56] Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna make that happen.
[1:41:57] Speaker 5: So I forced my daddy hurst them just getting this car,
[1:42:01] Speaker 5: we're gonna go here, and our family went down to
[1:42:03] Speaker 5: have Thanksgiving. He was afraid that she didn't like him.
[1:42:07] Speaker 5: Because he was not a part of of her life.
[1:42:10] Speaker 5: And as soon as you opened the door, she grabbed
[1:42:13] Speaker 5: me and hugged him. He broke down, crying and walked
[1:42:16] Speaker 5: away and took that walk and its men are programmed
[1:42:20] Speaker 5: to go take that walk, walk away, walk away. And
[1:42:24] Speaker 5: then I asked him he came back. I said, why
[1:42:25] Speaker 5: did you walk away? He said, I was just overcome emotions.
[1:42:28] Speaker 5: I just didn't want to. I just I just had
[1:42:30] Speaker 5: started crying. I had to walk away. Said why can't you.
[1:42:32] Speaker 1: Just stay there and cry, Just just stand there, be
[1:42:34] Speaker 1: held by her and cry.
[1:42:36] Speaker 4: He was just like, I don't know.
[1:42:38] Speaker 3: We've made progress. He's a lot better to this day.
[1:42:41] Speaker 3: I asked him, are you okay? Kobe passed away? Because Kobe,
[1:42:45] Speaker 3: I just I was like, she'd be like, you want
[1:42:49] Speaker 3: to cry. I'm like, you know right now, but.
[1:42:52] Speaker 1: If I do.
[1:42:55] Speaker 4: You look now, I'm about to cry. Six thirty years
[1:42:58] Speaker 4: I got to so.
[1:42:59] Speaker 3: I'm like, good, like Kobe's not here, Like, yeah, Kobe's
[1:43:02] Speaker 3: my favorite player, right, you know?
[1:43:04] Speaker 6: Because when he died, I cried, you did yeah, by
[1:43:08] Speaker 6: yourself with somebody who by myself?
[1:43:10] Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying?
[1:43:11] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[1:43:12] Speaker 1: Like why he says he still asked you that. She said, yeah, yeah,
[1:43:17] Speaker 1: so I knew like.
[1:43:22] Speaker 3: I would definitely say that is definitely one of the
[1:43:24] Speaker 3: things that have been one of the only challenges was
[1:43:28] Speaker 3: the passing of his mom and working through those emotions
[1:43:31] Speaker 3: with him, just him knowing I'm here, but also giving
[1:43:34] Speaker 3: him the space. And I'm honestly very thankful for that
[1:43:38] Speaker 3: woman that asked him that question on the plane.
[1:43:39] Speaker 4: Yeah, because it broke something and he told.
[1:43:41] Speaker 3: Me about it, and it made him realize, like the
[1:43:44] Speaker 3: little things like this is going to be a journey
[1:43:47] Speaker 3: of grief journey. And I lost my dad thirteen years
[1:43:51] Speaker 3: ago and we spoke about it all. I talked to
[1:43:53] Speaker 3: him all the time about my dad, trying to just
[1:43:55] Speaker 3: so he can have a peace know a little bit
[1:43:58] Speaker 3: about my dad because my dad reminds me a lot
[1:44:00] Speaker 3: of him.
[1:44:01] Speaker 1: So or he reminds you a lot about your dad.
[1:44:04] Speaker 2: Here reminds me a lot about my dad.
[1:44:06] Speaker 4: Yeah, isn't that kod Or?
[1:44:08] Speaker 5: How omniscient God is, how all knowing he is that
[1:44:11] Speaker 5: he'll say, hmm, here it is, and You'll look back
[1:44:14] Speaker 5: and be like, Daddy, God you got me. My father
[1:44:19] Speaker 5: got me, My heavenly father got me because he blessed
[1:44:22] Speaker 5: me with a husband that can cover men sound like
[1:44:24] Speaker 5: they have similar characteristics and traits as my father.
[1:44:28] Speaker 1: And that's how awesome God is.
[1:44:30] Speaker 5: How can we support you where y'all social media handles
[1:44:32] Speaker 5: and as we conclude.
[1:44:35] Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean you can follow us at photos by
[1:44:38] Speaker 6: Rhem on Instagram, reemphotography dot com.
[1:44:41] Speaker 1: It's our website and personal.
[1:44:43] Speaker 3: On social media's yes, my personal social My personal social
[1:44:47] Speaker 3: media is the Sandy.
[1:44:48] Speaker 1: Virgo and my personal is Kareem Virgo. And so I
[1:44:53] Speaker 1: want y'all to DM them.
[1:44:56] Speaker 5: Definitely DM Sandy a lot of women that are going
[1:45:00] Speaker 5: went through this journey of IVF for feeling the loss
[1:45:03] Speaker 5: of a child, and let her know that you resonated
[1:45:06] Speaker 5: with a story, show love. Follow those that are getting married,
[1:45:10] Speaker 5: you have these monumentals occasions. Reach out to Ring Photography,
[1:45:16] Speaker 5: book them.
[1:45:16] Speaker 4: They are the best.
[1:45:17] Speaker 5: Go look on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel.
[1:45:20] Speaker 4: It will blow your.
[1:45:21] Speaker 5: Mind about how much detailed they put behind their work.
[1:45:26] Speaker 5: And this first class I mean top notch photography, top
[1:45:29] Speaker 5: notch videography, top notch storytelling. And y'all know I'm a
[1:45:33] Speaker 5: storyteller and so I admire people who know how to
[1:45:36] Speaker 5: capture storytelling be a photography or videography and ring photography.
[1:45:42] Speaker 1: Is exactly that.
[1:45:43] Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Thank you.
[1:45:45] Speaker 1: So much, thank you so much.
[1:45:46] Speaker 5: Listen, thank y'all for blessing Dear Future WIFEI podcast. I
[1:45:48] Speaker 5: was expecting this only be an hour Rihanna, where we
[1:45:51] Speaker 5: are about two hours?
[1:45:54] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[1:45:55] Speaker 5: One, so we was chopping it up. So yeah, yeah,
[1:45:58] Speaker 5: this was powerful. Anything I like to say folk.
[1:46:00] Speaker 3: Clue, No, we love what you're doing. Keep doing it.
[1:46:03] Speaker 3: We're so blessed. And to be sitting on the yellow couch. Yes,
[1:46:08] Speaker 3: and you're going to keep touching so many people, so,
[1:46:12] Speaker 3: I mean you already have, but it's just it's just
[1:46:14] Speaker 3: gonna keep going, especially with your wife.
[1:46:16] Speaker 4: Yeah, she's gonna be my co host.
[1:46:18] Speaker 2: Yes, wow, I cannot wait.
[1:46:21] Speaker 1: That like breaking news right now.
[1:46:22] Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I've been telling.
[1:46:25] Speaker 5: Yes, yes, I said that my Essence article when they
[1:46:27] Speaker 5: did the story about my engagement. I said she's gonna
[1:46:29] Speaker 5: be my co that's amazing. January the first season eleven.
[1:46:34] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:46:34] Speaker 5: Yeah, and y'all and you're listen, I'm i gonna say
[1:46:38] Speaker 5: it to people. I let them know. The picture that
[1:46:40] Speaker 5: you'll probably take out the wedding will be the thumbnail.
[1:46:43] Speaker 4: That's on our on all our on our.
[1:46:48] Speaker 5: Banner, YouTube banner, and on the graphics for the thumbnails
[1:46:52] Speaker 5: for each episode or whatever.
[1:46:53] Speaker 1: So wow, that's crazy.
[1:46:54] Speaker 5: Yeah, no pressure, no pressure at all, No pressure.
[1:46:57] Speaker 6: I mean, I mean, honestly, I'm just thankful that we're here.
[1:47:01] Speaker 6: Like I said, I can't believe that this is happening.
[1:47:04] Speaker 6: And it just aligns perfectly with what we do, because
[1:47:07] Speaker 6: what we do is capture love, right and you have
[1:47:09] Speaker 6: to sit here and talk to different couples and learn
[1:47:13] Speaker 6: about their love story. So I just feel like it's
[1:47:15] Speaker 6: just a full circle moment.
[1:47:16] Speaker 5: So that's what intentional God is. It is, absolutely y'all
[1:47:21] Speaker 5: give it up for the virgos.
[1:47:22] Speaker 1: Y'all, thank thanks so much.
[1:47:23] Speaker 5: Stay tuned to the end for a letter to my
[1:47:28] Speaker 5: future wife.
[1:47:29] Speaker 1: Writing these love letters.
[1:47:36] Speaker 5: Ladarian thrust it suddenly into child protective services in twenty fifteen.
[1:47:41] Speaker 1: My nephew, Black, a.
[1:47:44] Speaker 5: Boy the likelihood have been adopted outside of kinship, Slim
[1:47:48] Speaker 5: the nne rmione, sixteen years old, Black a boy with
[1:47:54] Speaker 5: five years in the fossil care system before I even
[1:47:56] Speaker 5: knew his name. The likelihood have ever been the doctor it? Yep,
[1:48:01] Speaker 5: you guessed it. Slim to none while Ladarian and our
[1:48:06] Speaker 5: MONI were trying to survive and barely thrive in an
[1:48:08] Speaker 5: overpopulated and underfunded Falseter care system. I was living my
[1:48:12] Speaker 5: own life, doing well professionally, having been a single father
[1:48:15] Speaker 5: with a daughter who at that point was doing well
[1:48:17] Speaker 5: in college. It was my time to live my life right.
[1:48:21] Speaker 3: Wrong.
[1:48:23] Speaker 5: I felt unsettled, tireless, agitated. There are just too many
[1:48:29] Speaker 5: of our Black children stuck in ambiguity and in the
[1:48:32] Speaker 5: limbo of the Falseter care system. In twenty seventeen, I
[1:48:36] Speaker 5: legally adopted my nephew Ladarian.
[1:48:38] Speaker 1: Fast forward to twenty nineteen.
[1:48:39] Speaker 5: I had no ties to this other young king, but
[1:48:42] Speaker 5: I felt God instructed me to adopt them also in
[1:48:44] Speaker 5: al Babe, starting over with parenting should have been enough. Right,
[1:48:48] Speaker 5: Working with various foster care and adoption agencies to help
[1:48:51] Speaker 5: bring awareness to the countless young Black kings and the
[1:48:54] Speaker 5: Falster care system should have decreased my agitation. Right joined
[1:48:59] Speaker 5: the board of the Rectors of Advantage of Adoption, an
[1:49:01] Speaker 5: organization that helps find permanent adoptive homes for children, and
[1:49:05] Speaker 5: Falter Care should have led to some type of resolve.
[1:49:08] Speaker 4: Right.
[1:49:08] Speaker 5: No, not at all. None of it felt like I
[1:49:12] Speaker 5: had done enough. I now realized that every one of
[1:49:17] Speaker 5: those experiences was land the fundamental foundation for my life's mission.
[1:49:22] Speaker 1: Kingdom Royale.
[1:49:24] Speaker 5: Kingdom Royal would be a luxury, state of the art
[1:49:26] Speaker 5: home for foster boys. Our first location will be in
[1:49:30] Speaker 5: the Dallas Fortwork Metroplex. We will utilize the whole person
[1:49:33] Speaker 5: approach that instills identity, empowers them to advocate for themselves,
[1:49:38] Speaker 5: and enlightens them regarding new perspectives and limitless options that
[1:49:42] Speaker 5: they thought were impossible. Though the young Kings will attend
[1:49:46] Speaker 5: the local public schools that are in proximity to Kingdom Royal.
[1:49:50] Speaker 5: Our at home curriculum will broaden their worldview through participating
[1:49:54] Speaker 5: in the arts, attending various cultural events, learning about and
[1:49:58] Speaker 5: engaging and multifaceted the discussions about current events and even
[1:50:02] Speaker 5: relevant historical contexts, introducing them to gardening and landscaping, and
[1:50:06] Speaker 5: even caring for our animals on our form and on
[1:50:10] Speaker 5: site stables. We just launched our startup capital campaign with
[1:50:14] Speaker 5: the goal of raising two point eight million dollars. Now
[1:50:16] Speaker 5: why two point eight million dollars?
[1:50:19] Speaker 1: Well?
[1:50:19] Speaker 5: In twenty seventeen, I created a web series in which
[1:50:21] Speaker 5: I performed random acts of kindness for targeting the homeless community.
[1:50:25] Speaker 5: One of the most notable successes was that one of
[1:50:28] Speaker 5: the videos went.
[1:50:28] Speaker 1: Viral, garnering twenty eight million views.
[1:50:32] Speaker 5: However, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't
[1:50:35] Speaker 5: raise a single dollar to help in implementing a more
[1:50:38] Speaker 5: sustainable plan for the homeless community. So throughout the years,
[1:50:43] Speaker 5: with much remorse, I reflect that I'm not maximizing that moment.
[1:50:47] Speaker 1: I knew if at that.
[1:50:48] Speaker 5: Time just ten percent of the viewers donated one dollar,
[1:50:52] Speaker 5: we would have raised at least two point eight million
[1:50:55] Speaker 5: dollars that could have really established long term support for
[1:50:58] Speaker 5: the homeless community, or at lead started a long term
[1:51:01] Speaker 5: initiative to do so. This is my do over, this
[1:51:06] Speaker 5: is our new beginning. Together, we can attack this at
[1:51:09] Speaker 5: the root by specifically helping our homeless Black boys who
[1:51:14] Speaker 5: are already disproportionately represented in the American fossil care system.
[1:51:19] Speaker 1: I'm the Terrysarwickfield.
[1:51:20] Speaker 5: I've been nominated for three regional Emmys documenting my work
[1:51:23] Speaker 5: with the homeless as well as my personal adoption journey.
[1:51:27] Speaker 5: Despite those accolades, the greatest award for me is truly
[1:51:32] Speaker 5: providing the infrastructure for a transformed life. Visit Kingdomroyal dot
[1:51:37] Speaker 5: com for more details Crown of King and make a
[1:51:41] Speaker 5: donation today. This episode is phenomenal. I love how the
[1:51:52] Speaker 5: virgos you know went there talked about the complexities of childbirth,
[1:51:57] Speaker 5: their journey of faith, the moment of doubt. I love
[1:52:02] Speaker 5: their reem talked about how men aren't really taught or
[1:52:08] Speaker 5: feel like they have a safe space to share their fears, hurt, sorrows,
[1:52:14] Speaker 5: and we just need to unlearn some of those things. Well,
[1:52:16] Speaker 5: here's my favorite part of the podcast where I speak
[1:52:18] Speaker 5: to my future wife here, dear future wife, here, before
[1:52:22] Speaker 5: I ever meet the child we will raise, I already
[1:52:25] Speaker 5: bless the place where they will be formed.
[1:52:28] Speaker 1: Your womb.
[1:52:29] Speaker 4: I speak life over it now.
[1:52:31] Speaker 5: May it be a sanctuary of miracles, a sacred garden
[1:52:34] Speaker 5: where God plants the seeds of our love and brings
[1:52:37] Speaker 5: forth fruit.
[1:52:38] Speaker 4: And it's perfect timing.
[1:52:39] Speaker 5: I pray your womb will never know the sorrow of barrenness,
[1:52:43] Speaker 5: but only the joy of divine conception.
[1:52:45] Speaker 1: May it be covered by the same God.
[1:52:47] Speaker 5: Who opens Sarah, strengthened Hannahs, and bless Elizabeth. I believe
[1:52:51] Speaker 5: that when Heaven breathes on your womb legacy will be
[1:52:55] Speaker 5: birth children will who will carry our name, our prayers,
[1:52:59] Speaker 5: and our purpose into generations we will never see. And
[1:53:04] Speaker 5: if the Lord chooses that our legacy won't come through biology,
[1:53:09] Speaker 5: but through adoption or spiritual sons and daughters, then still
[1:53:13] Speaker 5: may your womb be blessed not only as a vessel
[1:53:15] Speaker 5: of life, but as a vessel of love. For motherhood
[1:53:19] Speaker 5: is not only in the bearing of children, but in
[1:53:21] Speaker 5: the nurturing of souls. So I honor your body as
[1:53:24] Speaker 5: holy ground, and I honor your womb as a covenant promise.
[1:53:28] Speaker 5: Together we will trust the Lord to bless it accordingly
[1:53:31] Speaker 5: to his will. For from you will flow more than children.
[1:53:36] Speaker 5: From you will flow nations, visions, and destiny through your
[1:53:41] Speaker 5: future Hovey. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the
[1:53:45] Speaker 5: Dear Future Wifey podcast. Remember be lit, live intentionally and transparently,
[1:53:51] Speaker 5: and don't stop loving. Make sure to subscribe to our
[1:53:53] Speaker 5: Dear Future wife and YouTube channel. We're available on Apple Podcasts,
[1:53:57] Speaker 5: Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
[1:53:59] Speaker 4: Welcome your support.
[1:54:00] Speaker 1: Simply share our podcasts with your friends and family.

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