Chateau Monroe

Rehearsal Hike + Dinner

Providence Canyon State Park

Ceremony Hike +Picnic Reception (Part 1)

South Mountain Christian Camp

Marriage Celebration (Part 2)

Our Wedding

Marriage Celebration 

~Open to all guests~

Ceremony Hike + Picnic Reception

~For Wedding Party Only~

Groomsmen attire:Please purchase these <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/1153603856/dark-sage-bowtie-tan-leather-suspenders?click_key=ec20ba66991079f3670571e3756ff193ed47b8e0%3A1153603856&amp;click_sum=43d64923&amp;ref=shop_home_recs_1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">suspenders and bowties</a>, these <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goodthreads-Athletic-Fit-5-Pocket-Chino-Brown/dp/B07NBCD3CT/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=brown+chinos&amp;qid=1645214876&amp;sr=8-9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">brown chinos</a>, this l<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Essentials-Regular-Fit-Long-Sleeve-X-Large/dp/B06XWG81L9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Z40TXCF2QMRW&amp;keywords=long+sleeve+white+button+down+shirt+men&amp;qid=1645215032&amp;sprefix=long+sleeve+white+button+%2Caps%2C111&amp;sr=8-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ong sleeve white button down shirt</a>, and these <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XTXGMKM/ref=twister_B07VVPMYZY" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">shoes</a>. If you would like to wear something similar to this, but not from these links, please text Tamara (954) 668-3184 for final approval, thanks!

Bridesmaids attire: A dress within the color scheme of the sage green image below. As for shoes, please wear nude flats. Please text Tamara (954) 668-3184 before purchasing the dress for final approval!

Once you have <a href="https://www.theknot.com/us/adam-carpenter-and-tamara-rosario-cardona-apr-2023/registry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">paid for your lodging via the cash fund on the registry tab</a>, you will be sent an email with the reservation details. Until then, you can learn more about where we'll be staying here at the <a href="https://www.theknot.com/us/adam-carpenter-and-tamara-rosario-cardona-apr-2023/travel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Travel &amp; Lodging Tab</a>.

Q + A

Marriage Celebration Information

Lodging Options

These are possibilities for accommodations that are close to the venue. Listed in order from most to least expensive per room. Keep in mind that the AirBnB rooms can be shared!

Carrier Houses Bed and Breakfast

Holiday Inn Express Forest City

Olivewood Inn

The Cottage at Gilbert Landing

Baymont by Wyndham Forest City

Nearest Airports to Lodging and Venue

Asheville Regional AirportGreenville/Spartanburg International AirportCharlotte International Airport All airports are about an hour from the lodging location.

Ceremony Hike Information

This is the location for lodging provided for the night of the rehearsal dinner and after the ceremony. <a href="https://www.theknot.com/us/adam-carpenter-and-tamara-rosario-cardona-apr-2023/registry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">To pay for lodging please visit the registry tab and pay via the AirBnB cash fund. </a>It will be $20 per night, per person making it a total of $40 per person. This was the most economic (and adorable!) option for all of us to stay in the same place. It is about 40 minutes from the ceremony location so we will be carpooling to and from the rehearsal hike and ceremony. Once you have paid for your lodging via the cash fund on the registry tab, you will be sent an email with the reservation details. Until then, you can learn more about where we'll be staying at the website link!

Columbus Regional AirportAbout 15 minutes from lodging Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International AirportAbout 1.5 hours from lodging

Travel + Lodging

Learn more about the Marriage Celebration venue: <a href="https://www.southmountainchristiancamp.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.southmountainchristiancamp.org/</a>

Providence Canyon

Learn More About the Ceremony Hike Venue: <a href="https://gastateparks.org/ProvidenceCanyon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://gastateparks.org/ProvidenceCanyon</a>

Venues

How We Met: We met at a small group bible study where he was visiting to check the group out. All I knew about him was that he had moved to Gainesville, Florida from North Carolina just to do an intensive ministry training program. That, and that he had really great hair. The second time we met was at a small hangout with a group of mutual friends. He was one of Charlie's closest friends at this point, and since Charlie was one of my best friends, I knew a lot about him. This time, we kept being in social situations together because our mutual friends continued to have gatherings both of us were invited to, so he left more of an impression than the first time. I thought he was very kind and fun to be around. How We Became Friends: I knew that I wanted to hang out with Adam as a friend more often, so one night, when the friends I normally hung out with all had plans, I invited Adam and a few other friends we both knew to grab some drinks. After this, we hung out almost every other day and texted regularly. Then, I got a text from Adam asking me out! This kind of caught me off-guard as I hadn't been thinking about him that way at all... However, I knew deep down that there was something different about Adam and that I might want to date him eventually so I carefully worded my reply to be no for now... but not no forever. I actually invited him to hang out with me that following Monday to make sure that we stayed friends. How We Fell In Love: The second time we were hanging out as "just friends" we went hammocking at 4pm and didn't stop hanging out and talking until 9 am the following morning. While I struggled to figure out how I felt, we kept hanging out and he was so patient and gave me so much space to figure myself out that it wasn't long before I knew that I had feelings for him. About a week later, we went hiking on a Gainesville trail then went to get coffee and I told him that we could officially date. Two weeks later, I was in love with him. I never understood the phrase "When you know, you know" until Adam. The way I like to describe it is I have always felt like a lost puzzle piece searching for her puzzle. When I was with Adam, even before we started dating, I felt like I had finally found my puzzle. The place where I felt safe, exhilarated, challenged, comforted, all the beautiful things wrapped up in one person. My home is him, and I'm so excited to grow and adventure with him forever.

Tamara's Story

Adam's Story

I Saw Her in a Dream

A Short Story written by Adam and inspired by Adam's love for Tamara 

I saw her in a dream. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was some sort of metaphor sent to me by an unseen force that I can’t begin to understand. I opened my eyes in this other reality to find myself sitting upright on a mattress. It wasn’t my mattress, but one that had been placed there by stronger hands than my own. It felt as though that mattress was brand new, yet had been planned for since the world began. The mattress was on a lake that was as motionless as death. Orange light from the street lights surrounding the lake danced vibrantly and the stars looked up at themselves from the reflection on the water’s surface. It was beautiful and foreboding, like fresh ice on an unsalted road.&nbsp; I couldn’t see much past the shore, but in the soft glow of the streetlights I could just make out people walking in endless circles around the lake. I couldn’t make out their faces, and they were all saying things my ears couldn’t quite catch. Their voices didn’t so much produce sound as they evoked emotion. I felt their fear, anger, sadness, joy, and profound interest. Every secret intent behind their innocent voices welled up inside of me like the first tundra flower to break through the permafrost. Or like a tumor, depending on the person.&nbsp; There was a paved pathway for the evening strollers to use in their endless cyclical journey, but only a few were using it. Most of them trod instead on the grassy slope nearest the lake’s shore. The little slope was riddled with evidence of the pedestrians’ struggles. Muddy footprints textured the earth, with the occasional gouge in the earth as evidence of a slip, failing to belie one’s struggles as they trekked on soft, uneven ground. The grass was bowed and withered. It seemed as though the browned and crushed blades were calling out to the immaculate sidewalk mere inches from where they grew, asking why it had failed to protect them, as if it had a choice.&nbsp; As the emotions seeped out of my surroundings, while I sat comfortably on my mattress, a bitter wind began to blow. The cold pierced me like the words of a lover scorned, and I sought protection from the breeze. Even then, the glassy surface of the water gave way to ripples as it could no longer keep quiet. Waves crashed about, and the water ebbed and swelled with ever-increasing vigor. It felt as though the mightiest of ships would have succumbed to the torrent, yet my mattress held firm to its place. Amidst the hungry waters, I wanted for nothing except to be out of the cold. It threatened to shrivel me into nothing. It wanted to dull the aching of all the emotions, but in a way that would leave me with nothing at all to feel. It was then I realized that the wind was whipping with the kindest of intentions, but in a similar way to burning a house down to stop the roof from leaking, some things just aren’t meant to heal.&nbsp; I curled up onto my mattress that floated faithfully in its place and braced the cold with all I had left. I felt like screaming, crying, or thrusting out my chest in a fit of defiance, but nothing seemed…&nbsp;&nbsp;I had nothing left with which to defend myself. The only option was to let the cold take me. To shrivel into a shell, to fall through my mattress into the water and just… be. Why not just tell the wind to stop?I heard the voice cut through my drowsy trance like the chime of church bells in a winter storm. I turned with what autonomy I had left and saw her there, sitting with me on my mattress. She was beautiful. She bore a breezy, elegant grace that coexisted with the kind of devout strength that came from carrying burdens far beyond herself. Her dark hair fell past her shoulders in lazy curls, and framed a cheerful face with caring eyes, which turned upwards at the edges in cat-like tilts. Her smile outshone the moon itself, and despite the cold I felt as though I could be sitting beside a fireplace when she smiled at me.&nbsp; She wore a sleek gold dress that fell to her knees, which I thought peculiar considering the attire of the walkers on the edge of the lake. They wore layers upon layers of colorless garments to keep the cold from making their bones brittle. She sat cross-legged, eyeing me with a look of mild amusement. She propped her chin on her fist and watched me for several glowing moments. Staring at her, I found it within me the ability to speak again. It felt like I had been silent for years.&nbsp;“You mean for me to… talk to the wind?” I asked incredulously. She laughed, her bright smile glinting off of the water’s troubled surface, and replied,&nbsp;"Does acting like it isn't there, seem to be working for the others?" I looked again at the passers by around the lake, one of them was more coat than person, and trudged along with their head down, slipping in the mud.&nbsp; “No,” I said tentatively, “not particularly.” She pressed her lips together in a genuine smile, one that you get when a loved one wishes good things for you from a special place in their heart. She waited a moment, looked up with hazel eyes at the clear night sky, and spoke again. The wind isn't quite as bad once you get to know it. You just have to look at it, let it know what you want. I blinked, “It’s that easy?” I said, “If the answer is so simple, why haven’t the others done it?”&nbsp;A weary sadness flashed across her face as she spoke again,&nbsp;"Do you see the sidewalk? The thing all but cries out to be used to ease their travel, and yet others choose to walk on the slope, for fear of staining the concrete with mud." I nodded solemnly, and then thrust out my chin defiantly at the cold wind, determined to trust the word of the woman. “Wind…” I started, having a hard time overcoming the thought of talking to wind, “Your actions may be justifiable, and intentions may be of good will, but to ignore and suffer is not my choice for this life. To feel is to be awake, I know pretending to be warm is no real way to live.” Even as I said these words, the cold eased from my joints, and like the bitter heat following a desert sunrise, the swelling tide of emotions filled my chest to bursting. I looked at the woman, who watched me with childlike curiosity and endearing interest.&nbsp; "How do you feel?" “Terrible.” I said, and she laughed.&nbsp;"But still, the pain of emotion is better than drowning in numbness, is it not?" She had a point. Amidst the faceless walkers and the black waters that lapped against my protective mattress, the only thing worse than being aware of it all was forgetting it, and either finding myself consumed by the water, or trampling the grass in an endless circle beside the sidewalk.&nbsp; Now that my bones had warmed, and the faintest tint of color returned to my skin, I turned to the mysterious woman, who had not moved her glittering, hazel eyes away from me. A question came to my mind, one that had weight, as if the question itself knew how important it would be. Regardless of the implications, it burst forth from me before I had a chance to stop it, “Why are you here?” She showed her pearlescent teeth suddenly with a vibrant smile. Her nose crinkled up and her eyes reminded me of the most glorious snow globe in the world.&nbsp;&nbsp;"Well, because I want to be. Because of who you are, more so than who I am." Her words laid like a salve on my burning chest. “But who am I? No one special, to be sure. I didn’t earn this mattress, and I could just as easily have been walking with the others on the edge of the lake.” "You chose to speak to the wind, and then you felt the burden you would have to bear as a result and did it anyway. That doesn’t count for nothing." “What does choosing to speak to me accomplish, then? How can I be a part of some plan of yours here?” A tangible sadness flickered over her expression, and the almost ethereal glow around her seemed to fade. I realized then that the glow was never there at all, she was just… human. She was lovely, and had a distinct elegance and grace about her, to be sure, but beneath it all there was a human. The glow around her was more my own mind attempting to justify how a person like this could even exist. She sighed deeply and laid down on the mattress, with fingers laced on her stomach and ankles crossed, staring thoughtfully at the stars in the now-clear winter’s night.&nbsp; At length, she spoke again. She sounded different now, as she laid on the mattress and pondered the cosmos, she sounded real. “I don’t need you,” she said, “I can’t use you. But, if you would have me, I would simply like to be close to you.”&nbsp; I was stunned, “I-I can’t really understand that either, I’m afraid.” Despite my doubts, I stretched out on the mattress beside her, putting my hands to rest behind my head and looking at the stars. The sky was incredible. The stars, despite being so purely reflected in the water, were difficult to perceive when looked at directly. It was almost as if the sky was a tapestry, constantly loosening itself&nbsp;and then weaving itself tighter again. The stars were like electrons, not seeming to exist at any one point in time. To see something like that at this magnitude was dumbfounding. My mouth was agape as I attempted to take in this celestial dreamscape, and the woman beside me tilted her head towards me. She stayed silent, while allowing me to absorb what I saw. It filled me with both uncontrollable excitement, the kind of excitement that drives visionaries to the other side of the world on a whim, and horrified worry, as if one of those stars could at any moment decide to fall out of the sky and crush everything around me.&nbsp; “The mattress keeps you safe from the stars, you know.” The woman said, after a long period of heavy silence. “It keeps you safe, but it won’t let you forget about them. Sometimes the assuredness of safety isn’t enough to overcome the constant awareness of danger.”&nbsp; I thought about that for a long moment and replied, “Perhaps, but I can’t believe that being a faceless wanderer is a desirable life, even if it is more comfortable.” She looked at me suddenly, eyes bright with little dancing flames I hadn’t seen before. “Let’s go then,” she said, “let’s find our star.” I met her eyes and raised an eyebrow. “How?” I asked, “I can hardly fly.”&nbsp; The flames in her eyes danced a little more wildly, and she smiled. “Of course you can’t!’ She said, as if she were giving a legitimate answer to a legitimate question. “What’s your point?” I said, frustration hemming my curiosity.&nbsp; She smiled softly at me, then rolled on to her side. She lay her head on my arm, and put a hand on my chest. “Leave the flying to the fliers,” she said, “you can be my anchor.” As she said this, she leaned in and gave me a slow, soft kiss on the cheek, before throwing herself off of the mattress, which didn’t so much as bobble. At first she sailed straight out above the water’s surface, then shot straight up into the mercurial night sky. I panicked, calling for her in a strained voice, standing on the edge of the mattress, unafraid of falling in.&nbsp; “Catch me!” She yelled. Despite her distance from me it was as if she had just whispered in my ear. I didn’t know what she meant. Panic gripped my heart like freezing talons, settling amidst the torrent of emotions that I had almost forgotten was there. I searched my surroundings frantically as if I could find some impossible creative solution to keep this woman from flying off into the abyss. I looked up at her, almost as if to accept my failure and say goodbye, and saw her smiling. It shone down to me, even as I sat down on the mattress in defeat, like a lighthouse telling the captain of a ship he made it home.&nbsp; I thought about the mattress that faithfully kept me afloat above the obsidian waters. I thought about the icy wind that this woman had shown me could be subdued. I thought about the people pacing around the lake on that muddy slope, and how, despite not being one of them, this woman felt compassion for them. Before now I never would have imagined that a person could fly to the heights that she had flown to. I never could have believed that the weight of everyone’s emotions could be worth bearing, and how painful shutting them out could be. So much of it was because of this woman. This beautiful, unique woman that chose to have such an unbridled worldview in spite of the pain and loneliness it caused her. I couldn’t let this woman fly away when she needed me to catch her. I&nbsp;let that happen.&nbsp; I took all of these feelings and solidified them inside of me like a weight on the end of a fishing line. The truth was heavy, but steadfastness often comes with a price. I called to her, and gripped the mattress with shaking hands. Amidst the tempest in my heart I felt her, and grabbed on with everything I had. She stopped flying away, and hung in the air, laughing like it was the first time she had ever heard her own laughter. She was like a kite, braving the unpredictable atmosphere while tethered to nothing but the hope that I would be her anchor.&nbsp; The crowds of people looked up for the first time since I had seen them. Most of them looked down immediately, unwilling to brace the chill wind and trudged onward in another fruitless lap. A few, however, gazed in wonder. Some pulled down their hoods, and took off their scarves so that they could look up a little further, and maybe because they didn’t feel quite as cold as they thought they would. They inched up the hill to get a better view. Finally, they were standing on the sidewalk. They relished the relief of standing on stable ground, they removed their clothes to reveal their colors, and beamed at the woman flying in the sky, waving at her gratefully. It was a beautiful, victorious scene. The last thing I remember about that dream was her, smiling in the air while the people around her found the inspiration to break from their circles. If I never find out what the mattress was supposed to be, or who that woman was. If I never learn to fly or have the ability to break people from walking through life in a somnambulant stupor, I will always be glad that in that dream I had the opportunity to hold tightly&nbsp;to someone who dared to fly higher and bring out the color in those that forgot how lovely they were.&nbsp;

Adam & Tamara

Adam & Tamara

Photos