By Anita Debro
Special to the Birmingham Times
“You Had Me at Hello’’ highlights married couples and the love that binds them. If you would like to be considered for a future “Hello’’ column, or know someone, please send nominations to Ariel Worthy at aworthy@birminghamtimes.com. Include the couple’s name, contact number(s) and what makes their love story unique.
CADESHIA AND RICKEY SAMUEL
Live: Grayson Valley
Married: August 19, 1995
Met: Cadeshia and Rickey met in high school. She was 14 and he was 16. “I met her though a friend at her cousin’s house in Collegeville,” Rickey recalled of the first day he saw Cadeshia. He said he noticed her smile. The two exchanged telephone numbers. “We talked on the phone for months before we met up again,” Cadeshia said. “And mailed letters and pictures. This was when people still wrote letters.” But at their second meeting, Cadeshia said she was at her cousin’s house again and when Rickey walked up she didn’t recognize him. “But we had talked on the phone everyday so we kind of confirmed there was a connection,” she said.
First date: Cadeshia was too young to go out on dates when they first starting seeing each other, so the two would meet every Friday at her house to “sofa sit.” By the time she could go out, the two remember going to El Palacio’s Mexican restaurant in East Lake and to the movie theater in Roebuck.
The proposal: “He really needs a do-over of the proposal,” Cadeshia joked. It was June 1995 —about six years after meeting one another— and the two were driving in the car when the subject of marriage came up. “I wanted to do something special to propose but she was being very persistent,” Rickey said. “We had already picked out the rings.” So he stopped at a traffic light, pulled the ring from under the car seat and gave it to her. “That satisfied me,” Cadeshia said, laughing.
Despite being together for several years before becoming engaged, Cadeshia and Rickey said their families were still hesitant about the two getting married. “They thought we were too young,” Cadeshia said. The families were so worried, in fact, that they had a meeting to try and talk the lovebirds out of getting married. “We didn’t care about anything else but each other, so we sat there and listened to them,” she said. “And after that meeting, I think they were the ones who started helping us set the wedding date. We just knew this was where we were headed.”
The wedding: The two wed at Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville. “I just remember being nervous and excited to start our lives together,” Rickey said of that special day. Cadeshia recalls being nervous as well. And emotional. “He sung to me at the unity candle and I was crying so hard and he grabbed me and hugged me.”
Six months later, the newlyweds purchased their first home and shortly after that, welcomed their first child. “I got a house, a husband and a baby all in a year,” Cadeshia said. Still being so young, both said they had growing up to do and they both faced difficult times and some growing pains. “It really took us growing up faster,” Rickey said.
Words of wisdom: For Cadeshia and Rickey, being in agreement on important matters is important. And staying together and in love is a choice to make. “We choose to choose each other,” Rickey said. “There is so much other stuff in this world, but we made this choice to be together and we make this choice daily to stay together.”
Cadeshia said, humor is important in the relationship. “We have to enjoy our time together so we laugh often when we talk,” she said. “He is good at imitating people so he keeps me laughing and we have fun together.”
Happily ever after: The couple have three children— Brittiney, 22, Rickey, Jr., 21 and Rhe’yohna, 9. They enjoy hanging out at the house together watching television and going out to eat. The two are also spiritually connected and are building a ministry together. They look forward to traveling and experiencing more things together as a couple in the future. “I want to keep experiencing firsts together,” Cadeshia said.
Rickey is looking forward to more traveling and quality time with his wife, “experiencing this empty nest that people are talking about,” he said.
