Asia-Cristine & Steven's Merrick Hollow Wedding

October 13, 2021 Bronwyn Spain

Asia-Cristine & Steven’s Merrick Hollow Wedding

After a 10-year relationship, Asia-Cristine and Steven tied the knot at Oklahoma’s Merrick Hollow in early spring. They chose their April 23rd date by looking up obscure holidays and seeing that it was Lover’s Day.

How did you meet?

AC: We met over 10 years ago when we were both on active duty military. I remembered that I had always seen him around, but I never thought of anything until I was on the phone and crying one day, but as I got off the phone, Steven approached me and asked if I was okay, and I remembered how he did everything he could to make me smile. At the end of our conversation, he told me that I had met Mr. Wright [his last name]! It was a brave move on his part, but it certainly worked!

When did you fall for her?

S: I knew I was in love with her, when I saw her getting overly ecstatic about a game, she wanted to challenge me on it, and I agreed. I didn't realize how good she was when she kept beating me at it but seeing how happy she was made me realize that I have never been this happy until I am with her. The moment I knew I wanted to marry her, is when I realized that I couldn't see her the next day because she went on to move overseas for a little while. I had a moment of regret for letting her go, and I promised that I would go with her the next time that happened.

AC: [I knew] when he got utterly nerdy on me (or at least tried to), on the equation of a Rubix cube. He was trying to explain to me how to use an equation to solve any Rubix cube, but when he tried to show me. He kept fumbling and messing it up. I thought it was the most endearing thing I ever saw, and I was like, "Yeah, I love this guy"! I knew I wanted to marry him when I came back from overseas and I saw him for the first time. I knew that I missed him and that I wanted to share a life with him.

Did you write your own vows?

With our backs against each other, we exchanged our written vows prior to the ceremony. It was beyond emotional and felt meaningful to express our love just to each other.

Top moment of the day?

Getting married! Watching the audience collectively agreed with the officiant when he said, " We finally get see these two get married." The moment was amazing and along with the realization that it was finally happening.

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What do you think you'll remember the most from your wedding 50 years from now?

AC: It is hard to imagine that I will forget any detail of our day, but I will never forget the moment where I stepped down the steps and looked across the room to see how beautiful everything was, from the venue covered in floral to Steven waiting for me at the altar. It was so surreal how this moment was formulated after only 3 months of planning a wedding.

Did you incorporate anything nontraditional?

AC: Since we are both introverts and kinda geeky, we subtly incorporated video game references into our wedding! We played orchestrated video game music that was incorporated into our wedding soundtrack! We also wanted to have a private dance because we are both notoriously bad dancers, so while everyone was lining up outside for our send-off, we had the DJ play our quirky music while we had our couple's dance in private.

As weird as this sounds, the timing of the wedding was nontraditional. We originally wanted to get married the year prior by a simple elopement, but we couldn't due to the pandemic. So we decided randomly to get married this year. We did not want time to be a factor for us anymore, so we decided to plan a small wedding within 3 months.

It was definitely a multi-cultural blended wedding! I am Biracial with Black/Spanish and [Steven] is Vietnamese/Black. Originally, we thought about honoring our Spanish and Vietnamese families with traditions, but we decided to do blended catering! We choose High Dive because, they created Asian flavored BBQ (bulgogi), served Latin style!

How did you feel when you saw each other for the first time on your wedding day?

AC: I was so nervous right before getting married because I wanted everything to be perfect, but the moment I saw him, all of the nerves disappeared, and for a moment, I only saw him and no one else. He looked so handsome, and I saw he was trying to hold back his tears. I knew that I had nothing to worry about, and I felt that everything became perfect the moment I saw him.

S: I have been looking forward to marrying Asia for so long that I felt that there was nothing to worry about, but the moment I saw her going down the stairs looking so beautiful, I knew that marrying her was one of my greatest achievements and it would be one of the happiest days of my life.

Fav local Oklahoma spots?

The Underground, Falcone’s, Hatch Early Mood Food, and Black Walnut.