by Cole
Up until October 2016, social media was still a part-time job for both of us. Then, around the time we started talking about me moving to California, our channel really took off. When it did I realized God had opened a door of opportunity I needed to explore. Here I was at twenty years of age, suddenly making more per month than I would have if I’d finished my degree and gotten a really good job. Rather than spend everything we made, Savannah and I decided to live simply and save like crazy. Neither one of us knew how long this ride might last so we thought it wise to save as much as we could.
I’d been improving the production quality of our work as well as working to creatively come up with new content ever since I moved out West. In the beginning talking into my iPhone as we drove to the airport was fine. But we couldn’t do that if we were going to build our YouTube channel into something viable. I began to think of the vlogs like episodes of a television show but much shorter. We didn’t script anything, but we did build every vlog around a theme. It’s a lot like a reality TV show that people watch on their phones. A lot of YouTubers rely on pranks and crude content; we built our channel around our relationship and Everleigh, of course. In addition to shooting and editing each vlog, I also tried to come up with the perfect thumbnail and title. In the YouTube world this is called clickbait because with those words you’re fishing for clicks. With practice I also learned that viewers wanted content that was genuine and real—what actually happened, much more than anything staged. I think our most popular video to date is a trip we took to a water park where Everleigh got stuck at the top of a ride. (Don’t worry. She was fine, and she couldn’t wait to go try it again.) The water-park video has around ten million more views than even our wedding video, and our wedding has a lot of views. That just showed me that we needed to be ourselves and let people see us having fun, even when that fun doesn’t turn out exactly the way we hoped.
The more our channel grew, the more attention we received from advertisers and agencies in Los Angeles. That attention brought new opportunities. Some we accepted. Some we didn’t because they were not consistent with who we are. We continued making our twice weekly vlogs. A lot of YouTubers vlog every day, but I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on our family. The point of all of this for Savannah and me was not to have the most views or to get famous; our goal was to build a happy family. One of the keys to that end is being content with what we have instead of always wanting more and blowing the resources God gives us on things we really don’t need. I think I mentioned this earlier in the book, but we have saved enough money for us to live on while we go back to college and get our degrees if or when our social media careers suddenly end. We have to think like that.
Though building social media is our full-time job, Savannah and I made a conscious decision to protect our family’s privacy in areas where we feel it’s important. Watching our vlogs, you see a lot of our lives, but you don’t see everything. We are thankful for everyone who watches, and nothing thrills us more than to hear from our fans about how our vlogs and videos have impacted their lives. But we know that we need boundaries, and so we’ve drawn lines around our more personal spaces. We want to make a positive impact on people’s lives, and we want to share our faith—actually that’s the biggest thing we want to accomplish.
We have also heard the negative criticism. People can be very cruel in their comments. We do our best to ignore them. Like I said, we didn’t choose this path to become famous. God pretty much opened this path up for us. Believe me, I am as surprised as anyone else that I get to make these awesome videos and be creative and actually make a living at it. Like my relationship with Savannah, I never want to take it for granted.
25
The Wedding Weekend
Cole
The closer we got to our wedding day the more nervous I became. I knew we were ready. Other than moving into a home of our own and sleeping in the same room, very little between us would change. We already spent all day every day together. We lived in the same house. We worked together. We already did life together.
And yet everything was going to change. Once we said “I do,” I would be her husband, and she’d be my wife. Together with Everleigh, we’d be a real family. Ev would then totally look at me as dad. As for Sav and me, we’d be one—spiritually, emotionally, physically one. As close as we felt as boyfriend and girlfriend, and later as fiancés, the level of oneness into which we were about to enter went beyond anything we could imagine. I knew how important this moment was going to be. While I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt we were ready, I still felt nervous.
I hoped and prayed I was up to the challenge before me. I know everyone who walks down the aisle and says “I do” believes it is forever. But life changes, and relationships change. Everyone goes through highs and lows that test their love. I had no doubt I loved Savannah and she loved me and the two of us wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. At the same time, I knew our love would grow and change over time just as our relationship with God must continually grow. You can’t just say, “I will always feel the love I feel today,” and have it magically happen. You have to work at always putting each other first, forgiving each other, and not holding on to arguments and disagreements. In talking to married guys I respect, I learned the lovey-dovey feelings of falling into bed each night so in love that you can’t wait to wake up in the morning to see each other—those change over time. Something new takes their place—a love that’s more seasoned and secure. Marriage is a commitment to love someone for the rest of your life, even on the days you don’t feel super in love. That’s the challenge I hoped I was up to, by God’s grace. I know I can’t love like this on my own. God gives me the ability to do it as I surrender myself and my marriage to Him daily.
Savannah
I can honestly say I wasn’t nervous about marrying Cole. Not one bit. I trusted and respected him completely with my heart and my life. Any worries I had or nervousness about Everleigh and him had been completely put to rest. They were such a great team, and I couldn’t wait for him to be her dad in every possible way. When I looked at him or thought about him, all I felt was love and security and peace. Marrying him would be the easiest and most natural thing I’d ever done.
However, the actual wedding was another story. The ceremony had grown so large that I had started to get a little nervous that everything might not go smoothly. In addition to our ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen, we had a lot of little kids involved. Cole and I love kids and there were lots of them we wanted to have help us celebrate our big day. There were two ring bearers—a little cousin and a boy who grew up with Everleigh. Then we had five flower girls! Ev and her bestie Ava, along with a little cousin named Layla, who pulled a wagon with baby twins Taytum and Oakley, who are our close friends Madison and Kyler’s children. When you have that many kids in a wedding, there’s a really good chance something is going to go wrong, but I was fine with that.
Whatever happened, it was sure to be fun. This was our day to celebrate our love for each other. If some little thing didn’t go the way it was supposed to, that was okay. Everything didn’t have to be super-serious because that wouldn’t fit who we are. When I met Cole, I learned to laugh again and to enjoy life again. That’s how I wanted our wedding to be—full of laughter and joy.
Most of the wedding preparation led up to the wedding itself, but for me, one of the most emotional moments of the weekend came the night before, during the rehearsal.
So many of our family and friends had come into town. Both of us were just so thankful for everyone who came, especially those who had come a long way away. Cole told his family from back east that we totally understood if they couldn’t be here. Flying can be really expensive. To our surprise, nearly all of his family came. They told us they wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Having so many people sacrifice to come out for our wedding made us both so thankful. This was going to be an amazing weekend.
Then came the rehearsal. Our wedding coord
inator worked with all the kids in the wedding party and had them all go out at just the right time. Then my bridesmaids and the groomsmen did their thing. Everyone was really loose and having fun, almost like this was a party, not a wedding.
Finally, it was time for my dad and me to practice walking down the aisle. You’ve read how we haven’t always had the greatest relationship. Plus the fact that he lived seven hours away in the Bay area. We’d been so close when I was little, which somehow made the relationship harder when it somewhat fell apart. Anyone reading this who has lived through her parents’ divorce understands what I am talking about. You still love them, but things are just . . . different, and you long for the closeness and sweetness of those times when you were little.
The wedding coordinator told my dad and me that it was our time. We heard the music change. My dad reached out and took me by the arm. “You are so beautiful, Rosie,” he said. He calls me Rosie because my middle name is Rose. “I am so glad you found your happily ever after. I am so proud of you,” my dad said.
Tears welled up in my eyes. “Thank you, Daddy,” I said.
My dad then hugged me, laid his head on my shoulder, and said, “I love you, Rosie.” Both of us lost it. We hugged for the longest time, both of us crying. I felt all the bad that had been in our relationship, all my hesitations, all my hurt, they all went away in that moment. Just as God forgave my past and never held it against me again, I can honestly say that in that moment I turned loose of everything I had ever held against my dad. It was like the last part of my heart that needed to be healed was suddenly whole.
Somehow my dad and I made it down the aisle. He then handed me off to Cole. I was such an emotional wreck, and this was just the rehearsal! I hope I make it through tomorrow without losing it, I thought.
Cole
We had picked out our beautiful wedding venue in February. The weather at the venue that day is why people live in California. Savannah and I walked all over the grounds while trying to avoid the infamous spitting llama and both of us were like, this is the greatest place ever for a wedding. Friends warned me about having an outdoor wedding in July in Temecula but I hoped they overstated things.
They didn’t.
For about a month before our wedding, I checked the temperature in Temecula on the weather app on my phone every day. By the end of June, the daytime temps were anywhere between 105 and 110 degrees. That’s beyond hot. “Maybe we should have the guys wear T-shirts and let people wear shorts to the wedding,” I suggested to Savannah. The look she gave me made me understand why guys are not in charge of weddings. The dress code didn’t change, and neither did the tuxes that our ten groomsmen and I wore.
If you’ve never experienced desert heat, let me just tell you, it’s like nothing you can imagine. When you walk out in the sun, it feels like a hand is pushing you down to the ground. You can feel yourself wilting. I grew up in south Alabama where it gets really hot and humid in the summer. Nothing in Alabama prepared me for this.
On the day of the rehearsal, it was hot from the moment the sun came up. People kept complaining about how oppressively hot it was. Everyone was sweating like crazy. I know I was. I’m basically built for cold weather. Cold days never bother me, but the heat does. I looked around at how miserable everyone appeared, and I felt terrible for them. How much worse was everyone going to be the next day when they were dressed for a wedding? I wanted to be empathetic to our guests. I went up to people and talked about the heat and how I wished we could do something about it. Thankfully, one of the first people I walked up to was my Uncle Bobby, who, with my Aunt Tammy and their five kids, had flown out from Florida for the wedding. “Man, it’s blazing out here,” I said.
Uncle Bobby had two babies on his hips, my little cousins. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “So what? Who cares? Yeah, it’s hot, but that doesn’t matter, does it? You’re still going to get married, and the day is going to be great.”
His words changed my whole attitude. I thought, You know what? He’s right. Who cares that it’s hot? It’s July. It’s always hot in July. After that, when people complained about the heat I said, “Yeah, but we’re getting married, so who cares how hot it is? The day is going to be awesome!” Uncle Bobby’s words didn’t just help my attitude on a very hot wedding day, but for all of life. It’s easy to get caught up in little details that aren’t perfect and miss the big picture of what God is doing. When problems arise, I can either choose to complain about the little things or keep my eyes on the bigger picture. Yeah, it was hot. That just meant we’d have one more story to tell about this incredible day.
Savannah
Was it hot? I barely noticed the heat. And, anyway, I hate being cold. It’s never too hot for me. I was ready to get this day started!
After the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, Cole and I went to our respective hotels. I kept thinking, This is the last night I will sleep apart from him! I could not wait to wake up next to my best friend and the love of my life. All of my bridesmaids and I stayed at a hotel near the wedding venue, and Cole and his groomsmen stayed in a house in Huntington Beach. I had a room to myself so I could take care of one last detail: I needed to write my vows to Cole for the ceremony. I’d saved that detail on purpose. I felt like if I wrote them too early, they’d sound rehearsed at our wedding, and I didn’t want that. I wanted them to be fresh and heartfelt. Everleigh was asleep on the king-sized bed when I sat down with my phone and started typing. The words just flowed from my heart. Twenty minutes later I called my sister in her hotel room and said, “I think I’m done.”
“Wow! You’re fast,” she said.
“Do you want to come over, and I’ll read them to you?”
“Sure,” Chantelle said. I also asked Michelle to come and let me try them out on her. They seemed like the perfect two, not only because I am so close to my sister and Michelle is my bestie, but because they’d been with me when my journey with Cole began. If Chantelle hadn’t run into Cole and John Stephen walking out of the Barnes & Noble at The Grove, none of this would have happened.
Michelle and Chantelle sat down on the bed, and I started reading the vows to them. Every time I looked up, I saw more and more tears streaming down their faces. When I finished, I asked, “So do you guys like them?” They both smiled and nodded. They suggested adding some of the little things I love most about Cole but also to take out a couple of the sentences about how bad my past had been. They reminded me that our wedding day was not about my past but about our future. I sat down and made a few changes, then read them again. This time I could hardly keep from crying.
“Perfect,” Michelle said.
“I don’t know if I can get through them tomorrow,” I said.
“It’s okay to cry,” my sister said. “The ceremony will be beautiful.”
I knew she was right. Chantelle didn’t go back to her room that night. My sister stayed with me and Everleigh. The three of us Soutas girls stretched out in the giant king-sized bed. It was my last night as a single woman. Tomorrow I’d be Savannah LaBrant!
26
Our Wedding Day
Savannah
I didn’t think I’d be able to go to sleep the night before our wedding. I was so excited, like every Christmas morning ever rolled into one kind of excited. Before I lay down, I whispered a prayer asking God to help me fall to sleep and rest well, even with all the craziness of the next day hanging over me. The next thing I knew, I woke up. A short time later Cole texted me: Today’s the day. I’m so excited to marry my best friend. Reading that text was the best start to the day—a day I never thought I’d experience. It was finally here. I could not have been happier.
Cole
I woke up knowing nothing was going to spoil this day. I’d stayed up pretty late the night before working on my vows. Writing them felt a lot like doing a Bible study directed toward Savannah. I read my Bible. I listened to worship music. And I prayed, asking God not only what I should say but also how He wanted me
to love her and see her the next day. God had brought us together. All my life I prayed about my future bride, and Savannah was the answer to my prayers. I wanted my vows to reflect that. I wrote them for her, but I also wanted God to be glorified.
Even though I was up late the night before, I was one of the first ones awake on my wedding morning. I woke up excited and unbelievably happy and thankful. How could I not be? In a few hours I would marry the love of my life.
By then, I was in hypermode, which is probably why it felt like everyone else in the house where we stayed was moving in slow motion. One by one the guys slowly drug themselves out of bed and started getting ready. Looking back, I don’t know how in the world no one forgot anything and how we all arrived at the venue on time. Temecula is an hour-and-a-half drive from Huntington, which shouldn’t have been a big deal, but with all the pictures we wanted to take beforehand, we didn’t have a lot of extra time. My dad had planned on making his signature French toast for our breakfast that morning. The night before, he went out and bought everything he needed. Everything, except a skillet, that is. He tried making breakfast in some pots and pans, but it didn’t work. The whole thing basically went up in flames, so we stopped at a Jack in the Box on our way out of town to grab some biscuits. The extra stop made us run late, and those drive-through biscuits didn’t really satisfy a bunch of hungry guys. The morning wasn’t going anything like I’d hoped.
We were hungry.
We were hot.
We were frustrated.
Some of my siblings started arguing with one another. I felt myself getting really antsy until I reminded myself of what my uncle said the day before. So my dad’s big breakfast bombed. So what? We were hungry. So what? We’d eat eventually. No one was in danger of dying from hunger. We were running late. So what? We’d get there. You can’t have a wedding without the groom. No need to get frustrated and let little things ruin the day. I was about to get married and the day was going to be awesome no matter how it started.