Singing because love is a beautiful thing in Johnny Drille’s voice… Don’t worry you’ll agree with us when you read Lydia and Lamine‘s love story.

These two first met at Abidjan Airport, locked eyes but made no contact, then as the universe would have it, they met again in Abuja. This time Lamine made the swift move of walking up to her, requested her number, and then it all started. We are super glad to see where that meeting has led them now as they are gearing up to say yes to forever together.

We know the story is better heard from the couple, so let’s find out all the gist from Lydia:

We come from a mixed religious and African background (Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Morocco, and Senegal). My dad is from Togo, with roots in Ghana, while my mum is from Nigeria (precisely Imo state), but she has lived most of her life in Cotonou. Lamine’s Parents are from Morocco and Senegal, so it’s safe to call us the Pan-African Family.

We first met in 2017, at the Abidjan Airport, where we both had some business transaction to close that week, I noticed him checking me out, our eyes clicked at different times, but I was like “Abeg abeg o! Let everybody just leave me o! Heavenly race is my goal but Lamine kept staring at me in a way that my spirit and my shadow noticed, I was like, Hey God o! this is how Kidnappers and serial killers used to start o. But the man was too fine to be one, so  I started looking back at him too, “You look me, I Look you, God no go vex”. The staring competition continued for another 5 plus minutes, it was somewhat uncomfortable though I liked it. Well before any move could be made, his flight was announced. In retrospect, I think Lamine was maybe too shy to holla at a sister after all that airport chemistry and physics. We went our separate ways and took flights to our destination. Not a word was said to each other and so we what?? We Mouevvvvee!

It felt like something from a movie or a divine orchestration from above, or God was just generally showing off. That same week, we met at a lounge in Abuja, we recognized each other from the airport immediately and it was the weirdest thing ever. My heart was racing and I noticed Lamine was trying to plot an entry, before I could catch my breath, Oga did not slack o, I just noticed him walking up to my table, it felt like I should have borrowed somebody my heart that day, it just kept doing “Kikumm Kikumm” Gbissh Gbishh”, he walked up to me and requested for my number. How I gave him the correct number, I’m not entirely sure, because my brain just froze for a few seconds, his smile melted away all my “Hard Guy, Hard Guy” and so it began.
We played it cool as just friends for a while, we allowed ourselves to enjoy each other’s company with no pressure of “What are we now”?, we just enjoyed being around each other, and before we knew it, our friendship blossomed, we realized that although our backgrounds and religious practices are different, we shared common values, and we connected on our love for God, our faith, travel, and gastronomy (Don’t ask me about the Gastronomy part) and like they say, the rest is why we are here today.

Lamine is one of the kindest humans that I have ever met in my life, he’s the definition of the “little things man”. I remember when I was in Nigeria, I was craving “French Croissant”, not all these ones that they sell in this Abuja o, maybe I had just mentioned it in passing in one of our chatty conversations, he noticed it and less than a week after, he delivered the exact Croissant from Paris, he took the time to carry it on different long flights to get to me. “Whewww! Boy, you had me at hello”. I am most certainly the luckiest girl in the world.

And when it was time to pop the question, here’s how Lamine pulled it off:

The journey to the proposal taught us a lot of lessons on getting out of our comfort zones, patience, wholesomeness, and being complete individually. We went on holiday to Dubai after a trying period due to COVID-related restrictions. Lydia was stressed out by the whole pandemic situation and I wanted to just arrange this trip for her to be pampered, at least, that was the excuse I gave as I had the plan to propose during this trip, but I needed to make sure she didn’t have the slightest idea.  This woman can see through me, so I created several decoys.

After my research and googling for the best unsuspecting place to propose, I found a cozy romantic, and beautiful courtyard restaurant that reminded me of my Moroccan roots. I am very big on my roots, our cultures, where we come from, etc so this restaurant was an easy sell to Lydia. We dressed up for dinner, made our way to the restaurant and everything was on lockdown including her nails (If you know Lydia, then you know her nails are always on 100%, so no surprise there).

The waiter had arranged a standing heater for Lydia. The different courses and drinks were an invite to an Arabic culinary trip.  I waited until we were done with dinner; I tried to keep it cool and was just smiling sheepishly throughout dinner. I had asked the waiter to take a picture of us and as Lydia got up for the pictures, I got down on my knee and as the words were coming out from my mouth, Lydia still didn’t know what was going on, until I brought out the ring, she was shocked, (because she didn’t see it coming) and so I continued to tell her all the words I had played back a billion times in my head. At this point, my hands started to shake a little, palms sweaty, but all that kept me going was the big bright smile her eyes lilted with, after she let me go through all I had to say, she said those magical three letters “YES! now here we are.

Credits