It was March 2020 and we had just had to cancel our dream wedding in Istanbul. It was eight weeks out but Covid was getting worse by the hour. We were devastated, we had spent a year planning all the details, and at this point we should have been packing and preparing for the best week of our life. Major pivot, and this is where you see that sometimes, life has bigger and better plans for you. My husband (then fiance) and I decided to start looking for homes. Our wedding wasn’t going to happen for a while and finding a home felt like the right next step. (Also, we were both working from our 800 sf condo at the time so it was a NECESSITY to find a new place with more space to function.)

We began driving through neighborhoods in the area and finding the ones we liked the most. We had a few areas scoped out already but wanted to see all the options. We saw many homes, fully masked and with no realtor present since social distancing was enforced at the time. Nothing really caught our eye. We were constantly on Zillow checking out options and seeing any new listing popping up.

On a Sunday morning, we had one last showing scheduled. We had decided to see this last house and then take a break from looking for homes. We had been actively looking for about a month at this point and it was becoming an emotionally draining process. We showed up, looked at the house and it was a letdown. It needed a lot of work but the floor plan was also not workable like to add on to it – it was just not a good option. We walked out upset. I was feeling so hopeless, I was still processing that our wedding was cancelled and on hold until who knew when and now finding our future home was much more challenging than we initially thought.

We hopped in the car and headed to our condo. As we made our way home, I decided to turn on Zillow and activate the “current location” feature so I was seeing all the “For Sale” homes in the area as we passed by. I had all these homes already memorized and we knew all of them by this point, but I left the app running JUST IN CASE. As we began driving through our dream neighborhood, a FOR SALE notification popped up and I immediately yelled and told my husband to drive us to the little red icon sitting on top of this house’s location on the map. My heart was racing! Our dream neighborhood, could this really be?!

We pulled up. The first thing that I saw was the massive perfect Royal Poinciana tree sitting right outside the house. I immediately saw my entire life happening at this house. The house was clearly in need of a lot of work but we overlooked that. We wanted to see the inside and make sure the potential existed in floor plan.

We called our realtor and he was able to get us in in 15 minutes. The house had been empty for months, it needed a major renovation but the minute I walked in, I knew this was our home. We could tackle it. It was all cosmetic and my husband quickly confirmed we could knock down a few walls that would open up the space completely. The spaces we needed were there, our vision kicked in and we saw the potential.

We decided to put in an offer the next day and the rest is history! This house was meant for us. Our wedding was supposed to be on June 4th, 2020, so we decided to celebrate that day and got married in a tiny mini-mony at my parents’ house. I literally walked from my parents’s kitchen to their living room in a white amazon dress to marry the love of my life. 10 people, us, lots of champagne, a pair of amazon prime rings, and all of our friends and family on a zoom. It was magic.

We ended up planning the closing of the house for the next morning, June 5th, 2020. We couldn’t wait for any of it, to be married and to close on our new home. It was a blissful 48 hours packed with happiness, tears, and so many projects in mind for this future home of ours. A home that represented hope during a very uncertain time in our lives. We learned that not everything in life is controllable and sometimes, there are greater things in store for us than we can ever imagine. I’ll have to tell you about tackling the renovation 😉

#LoveisnotCancelled

SIP STUDIOS’ LTK