Nina + Roy | Chance of a Lifetime Cruise Wedding in Key West @WeddingMix

We couldn’t help but notice that WeddingMix couple Nina and Roy’s cruise wedding pictures were seriously AMAZING. Yet, their love story is even more beautiful than their wedding pictures could capture. Gorgeous Florida bride Nina recounts  the coincidental meeting she had with her now-husband and the miraculous chances they took to be together.

Every road begins with a choice to follow it. And I followed mine big time. I met Roy though a friend when she invited me to come visit her in New York. We spent the day in New York City and I remember thinking he was really cute but nothing would ever happen. Just one of those chance encounters that you know will never lead anywhere. Apparently, I made an impression on him as well because soon after returning home to sunny Florida, I began receiving messages from him on Facebook. Soon we were talking daily on the phone, and after two months I made the decision to make a second visit.

When I came back to New York I remember being so nervous thinking “what if I’m wrong and he’s a nut job…I know the address to the nearest hotel, I have the number to the local cab company, and I will use deadly force. ”  Luckily for me I never had to worry. Instead I got to spend four days in the Hamptons of Long Island, boating in Moriches Bay, and hanging out with good people just having a good time. When it came time to leave I never cried harder because I knew then what I know now that he was the one for me.

Four months later in the dead of Winter I moved to Long Island. Stepping out of the car I flung myself at the giant piles of snow. Born and raised in Florida the closest thing I had to snow was the frozen ice on the back of the freezer. I felt like a kid. I told myself I would give it a year. A year to see what it was like living away from my family and friends. A year away from the place I was born and raised. Just a year to have fun.

A year came and went and I soon realized this had become a long-term decision to move to New York. And in that second year living in Long Island I found out something out that would change my life forever. I had suffered from high blood pressure since high school and had seen many doctors all saying about the same thing, “it’s becoming more common in younger people as they check for it now more then they did in the past.” But as I got older and took more medication it never seemed to get better. I was urged by my new primary care doctor to see a cardiologist. After many tests and visits later I found that I was born with Coarctation of the Aorta a heart congenital condition found normally in infants but rare in adults and that I would need surgery to repair. From my research the average life expectancy was 35.

It explained everything, the constantly being tired, the soreness in my legs after exercising, and the constant feeling that someone was sitting on my chest. Things I did not even realize were wrong with me because I had been living with it my whole life. Within the first two years of our relationship we were put to the test as Roy had to drive me to the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City so I could under go open heart surgery. After four days in the hospital and another four weeks at home recovering I felt ten years younger and had energy I never knew you were supposed to have. Less then a year later we were engaged.

Now planning our wedding would not be easy. His family and friends are in New York and mine are in Florida. Trying to decide how we can connect the two groups seemed impossible if we were to have it on Long Island or Florida. So we decided to compromise, we got married on a cruise. Both our families booked a six-night cruise aboard the Carnival Freedom. Where we got married on the white sands of Key West and spent our wedding with our close friends and family all together with out any of the worries associated with out of town guests. Everyone was on vacation.

After getting married I can honestly say it doesn’t feel any different. Nothing has changed and I guess in a way that is a good thing. But I do think back on the last four years and all the events that lead us to this moment. About all the chances we took on each other. From barely knowing one another to spending the rest of our lives together, from having less then 10 years to live to having a lifetime to love and experience. But like I said before I followed my road and there are a million things I could have done differently that could have kept me from having this life. But I took a chance and could not be happier.