OUR STORY
August 1st 2025 - Forever
Long before we met, each of us hoped that one day God would write a love story from the places in our lives where love sometimes felt like it didn't exist.
Both of us know what it means to search for truth, for purpose, for belonging, and ultimately for the kind of love that blooms from redemption. Looking back now, we can see that God was preparing each of us for each other all along.
Neither of us expected to meet the person we would marry on a Saturday morning at the lake.
Like many good stories, ours began with a mistake. A friend reserved a boat for the wrong weekend, and when the group gathered again the following week, a few extra invitations went out to fill the seats. One of them went to Alec.
Neither of us made the right first impression. Samantha saw a laid-back outdoorsman in aviators and a sun shirt, trailing the unmistakable scent of palo santo. Alec saw a girl from Seattle who drove a Subaru and arrived with festival friends, and assumed she must be a free spirit from the Pacific Northwest. We still laugh at how wrong we both were.
Somewhere out on the water, we discovered something unexpected in common, we both knew what it was like to feel out of place growing up. That conversation opened the door. On the drive home, we talked about faith, and Samantha shared that she felt God leading her somewhere new. Alec invited her to Divine Liturgy the next morning.
She said yes. That single invitation changed both of our lives.
Our first date after church stretched from lunch to coffee to nearly the whole day. We talked about our families, our hopes, and the kind of marriage we each prayed to build. From that day forward, we were rarely apart.
We quickly realized we had each found something in one another we had been searching for our entire lives, a place that felt like home. After three dates, Samantha told her mother she had met the man she would marry. On the fourth date, Alec told Samantha he loved her. Both of us felt relieved we had not been feeling crazy in love alone.
2025
THE TWENTY-SIXTH OF DECEMBER
While celebrating Christmas with Alec's family in Arizona, Alec asked Samantha to marry him standing beneath the lights of a Christmas tree. With eager and grateful hearts we said yes to a lifetime together.
We have become increasingly convinced that God did not simply bring us together to enjoy life's happiest moments. He brought us together to become the people He is calling each of us to be, to heal, to grow in holiness, to learn how to love sacrificially, and to experience the kind of mercy neither of us could ever earn but both of us desperately need.
Through every season, our faith has remained the foundation beneath our relationship. It reminds us daily that marriage is not about finding two perfect people, but about two imperfect people learning to love with greater patience, humility, sacrifice, mercy, charity, and kindness.
Our marriage begins on September 13, 2026, when we will stand before God, our families, our friends, and the Church to receive the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. It is this sacred day that we have been preparing for, and it is the day we have long looked forward to sharing with all of you.
Thank you for being part of our story and for joining us as we begin this sacred vocation. We cannot wait to welcome you to St. Ignatius Orthodox Church and celebrate with you afterward at The Hermitage Hotel.
IN CHRIST
Samantha + Alec
THE MCDOWELL CREST
The Names We Are Joining
Our family crest was created for our marriage—not as a claim to nobility or inherited rank, but as a visible expression of the faith, histories, and hopes we are bringing together in one household. We wanted something more enduring than a wedding monogram: an emblem that could begin with our marriage and, God willing, be carried forward through the life of our family.
Like all traditional heraldry, every part of the design has meaning.
The three golden stars recall Alec’s Tennessee heritage, while also representing the light of Christ, truth, and divine guidance. Beneath them, the oak branch and acorns honor Saint Boniface and our shared German heritage. The oak has long symbolized strength, faithfulness, endurance, and deep roots. The acorns represent growth through small beginnings: gradual achievement, patience, and the hope of long-term stability.
The crown recalls the crowns placed upon the bride and groom in the Orthodox Mystery of Marriage. These are crowns of glory, but also crowns of martyrdom, reminding us that Christian marriage is a life of mutual self-offering. It also honors the saints crowned in glory, particularly the Holy Martyr Varus.
The pelican in her piety, feeding her young with her own blood, is an ancient Christian image of self-sacrificial love and of Christ giving Himself to us in the Eucharist. For us, it also calls to mind Saint Porphyrios, whose teaching in Wounded by Love has had a profound influence on our relationship and on the way we came to understand love in Christ.
The waves represent both the waters of baptism, through which we were united to Christ, and the waters upon which we first met. They join the spiritual beginning of our lives with the earthly beginning of our life together.
The colors also speak. Azure (blue) represents fidelity. Argent (silver or white), represents truth and purity. Together, blue and white recall Alec’s Scottish heritage. Or (gold), represents generosity, nobility of spirit, and the glory of God. The combination of blue and gold also echoes the arms associated with Saint Edward the Confessor, a distant ancestral connection.
Throughout the design, the number three appears repeatedly: three principal sections, three stars, three acorns, three points upon the crown, three waves, three chicks, and three drops of blood. Each repetition directs the crest back to the Holy Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—under whose protection we hope to establish our home.
It is an unusual thing to create in the modern world, but that is partly why we chose to make it. The crest is not merely decorative, nor is it intended as a claim about what our family already is. It is a reminder of what we pray our family may become: faithful, truthful, generous, deeply rooted, and willing to love sacrificially in Christ.