On Friday, March 7, 2025, I officiated Juliana and Sacha’s wedding ceremony at the Marigny Opera House in New Orleans, Louisiana. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:
I don’t think I have begun these remarks with this type of statement before: Juliana and Sacha’s love story speaks to the benefits of truancy. I see the raised eyebrows. Stay with me. It will make sense in a moment.
Sacha says, “In the fall semester of my sophomore year of college in 2014 is where I met my wife Julz. Every Thursday, one of my classes had a film screening on a culturally classic film. I would skip this class quite often to play some soccer with my friends in the Boston Gardens. During one of these sessions, a friend of ours said he invited this cool chick he met during one of his classes. When going down the path to the Gardens, I saw Julz…”
Juliana speaks to the magic of that moment: “Sacha does not believe me but I swear it was love at first sight for me, when I saw him I immediately was drawn to him. From that moment I showed my interest in him, we became closer friends and long story short we got together at 19 and never looked back.”
The impression they made on each other was mutual. Sacha says, “One of the first things I noticed was her smile. I decided to sit out playing soccer and just sit down with her and her friends. We hit it off immediately and instantly loved her energy, I found myself wanting to be around her all the time. At one point, she didn’t have her phone for a week and I stopped by her room almost everyday to see if she was there and if not, I would leave her a post it note.”
From the beginning, her relationship with Sacha had a profound effect on Juliana and helped her find herself. She says: “I began college a semester later than Sacha, so I entered my freshmen year still searching for my friend group where I would fit in and have the space to discover and be my true authentic self. I took a semester off to rediscover who I was after high school, that semester off and my first semester at Emerson was a pivotal year of discovering who I wanted to be. I met Sacha my second semester of college and at that time I was feeling confident in who I was and proud of the work I have done. Meeting Sacha felt like a gift given to me for that journey and he solidified that dream of the woman I was becoming.”
That sense of mutual growth and self-actualization has never stopped. In that sense, this moment is a capstone to their love story. Juliana says: “Being with Sacha since I was 19 meant we have had many life moments together and grew together. We always knew we would get married and now getting closer to 30 we felt that it was time to celebrate all those years of love together and enter true adulthood to plan the rest of our lives.”
Sacha agrees: “We have now been together for over ten years and it's again another joyous chapter of my life. After being together for a third of our lives, getting to an age where adulthood felt cemented, it made sense to take the next step into our relationship; making it official not just in the eyes of the law, but through a joyful and spiritual celebration of our union with all of our friends and family. Ten years is quite an achievement and celebrating our love feels natural to us.”
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