Though they were each based in other cities at the time – St. Petersburg and Austin, respectively – Eric Fayad and Chadwick James first connected in Newark, N.J.
Fayad teaches medical and fire dispatch classes around the country and had hoped to schedule a class in San Francisco that fateful week in Oct. 2014. To his dismay, he filled out his request form incorrectly and found himself in New Jersey.
James is a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines and landed in the Garden State on a layover that same week. They matched on Grindr and started chatting.
They didn’t meet up immediately. Instead, they exchanged phone numbers to continue their conversation. When James moved to Chicago not long after their first messages, he found a large bouquet of flowers from Fayad waiting at his new apartment. “The note said, ‘I hope the housewarming goes great,’” James recalls. “We hadn’t even talked on the phone by that time.”
The pair finally met in person in 2015 for dinner at the Tampa Airport Marriott when he was in town on another layover. They were engaged before the year was over.
They had purchased a boat together and organized an outing with friends. James thought it was just a fun day on the water, but Fayad had other plans. He rented space at a Gulfport restaurant and invited friends and family to meet them there. When they pulled up to the dock, he proposed.
James officially moved to St. Petersburg after that. As they began planning their wedding, he fell in love with the “beautiful” Fritz Farm in Cordele, Georgia. Having spent much of his life in South Georgia, he knew of the area as “very Southern… and not really welcoming of the gays.” Still, he wanted to get married there, hoping to make the point that “love is love.”
When they learned the venue was owned by a lesbian couple, any concerns they had about the area were eased. “It was meant to be,” he says. “They were family.”
They set a date, Oct. 6, 2017, and their guests made travel arrangements. Then, Fayad’s sister fell ill. She had battled cancer for much of her life and the leukemia she had beaten three years earlier returned.
Her doctors scheduled a bone marrow transplant the day before her brother’s wedding. Not only did Fayad not want to get married without her there, he was also “the donor that saved his sister’s life,” James says.
They put their plans on hold and days after Fayad donated his bone marrow, the couple held an intimate ceremony in his best man’s backyard. One year later, their big day finally came and they held their dream wedding, an over-the-top Kentucky Derby-themed affair with many friends and family, including Fayad’s sister.
“Everything was perfect,” he says. “It’s a blessing she was able to be there.”
James adds, “It just shows how strong we are … with all the ups and downs and the cancer, everything came out the way we wanted in the end.”
Engagement date: Dec. 5, 2015
Wedding date: Oct. 7, 2017 and Oct. 6, 2018
Wedding venue: Fritz Farm (Cordele, Georgia)
Wedding song: “I Said I Loved You but I Lied” by Michael Bolton
Wedding theme: Kentucky Derby
Florist: Southern Accents & Designs
Officiant: Brent Walker
Caterer: Southern Elegance
Bakery: Southern Elegance
Cake Flavors: Unfinished cake with vanilla layers, chocolate caramel, berries and popcorn and one gluten-free layer
Photographer: Greg Moran
DJ: DJ Money
