Emmanuel Edward Akol and Yvonne Nangira fell in love on a trip to a friend’s wedding. This simple trip has turned them from being wedding guests to a lifetime couple!
Enjoy the sweet love story of Emmanuel and Yvonne below:
It was 2010 when Emmanuel Edward Akol, a network engineer met Yvonne Nangira, a business analyst, on a trip to Mbale City. Yvonne’s elder sister had been invited to a wedding and asked her sister to come along.
“My big sister’s friend was wedding but because my brother-in-law was not in town, she asked me to accompany her. She had also mentioned to me that one of her friends (Emmanuel) was in tow,” Yvonne recounts.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel was the driver on this trip. He offered to pay their hotel bills, as well as did cameraman duties at the function, which impressed Yvonne.
“We did not really talk much after that trip. However, we became distant friends and talked once in a while,” Emmanuel shares.
“We began talking again. Later in 2016, Emmanuel said he wanted our relationship to lead to marriage,” she recollects.
But, before their resolve to stay with each other Emmanuel used to seek advice from Yvonne while he was dating someone else.
She cannot forget when she gave him tips on how to make his girlfriend’s birthday worthwhile.
“I would suggest gifts for her and this went on for a while before anything romantic blossomed between us,” she says.
“I found someone I could relate with, talk to, laugh with and we had the same values,” Emmanuel recalls.
He felt it was just the right time and everything fell in place. Yvonne, on the other hand, found her husband-to-be, “thoughtful, caring, God-fearing and I wanted to be better each day because of him, something I had never experienced before.”
“We would go out and do casual things together all the time. Most of the memorable dates were my firsts, including rope climbing at Busiika Adventure Park, horseback riding in Jinja,” Yvonne says.
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As Yvonne was struggling with a terrible cold at her workplace, Emmanuel got just the right idea to surprise her.
“I offered to take her for dawa tea to soothe her allergy at Café Javas and I had an engagement ring in my pocket,” narrates Emmanuel.
As Yvonne sipped on that tea, all she could think about was placing her order while Emmanuel grabbed her hand and started speaking all manner of endearments to her.
“He later pulled out the ring and proposed to me at the perfect time since it was the week of my birthday,” she recollects.
Yvonne was surprised and happy, but she expected such on her actual birthday.
“I had asked Yvonne before to invite friends over the weekend at a planned venue to celebrate her birthday before the proposal,” he says.
She expected the proposal to happen then.
On July 21, 2018 the lovebirds walked down the aisle at St Luke’s Church in Ntinda, Kampala and hosted about 350 guests at Arirang Hotel.
They share good planning tips that made their preparations a success. Emmanuel says coordination worked well for him because the two families came together during the planning process.
“I asked my aunt to accompany my wife’s mother to do the shopping for the gomesis and also supported my wife’s aunt in shopping the bitengi fabric and picked my brides’ fabrics from Ghana,” he says.
Yvonne was guided by her mother during the shopping.
“My mother knew a woman with high quality materials from Dubai and my husband also supported me with the finances to shop for other personal necessities for the big day,” she says.
Before their functions the couple prayed together and they were overwhelmed by joy their families shared.
“I enjoyed looking at my husband smile and I loved all my outfits since I was smart in them,” Yvonne shares.
The duo describe marriage as, “fulfilling, great journey” and front virtues such as, “communication, and prayer.”
The pair says they are intentional about their relationship and keep the efforts to ensure they connect better such as date nights adding that, “It is a choice that we make to choose each other every day and not walk away when things seem not to make sense.”
They recount some of their best decisions in the last five years such as, “supporting each other’s growth, partnerships, and being pillars to each other without stereotyping roles in the home.”
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For any lasting relationship, they tip young couples to, “create time for each other and establish what works best for them, pray together and for each other.”
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Photo credit: Getty