Before the “I Do”

They say it's a small world. In our case, Alenquer is pretty small too.

Sara and Diogo grew up in the same town, attended the same schools, and spent years walking the same hallways, playing in the same playgrounds, and even following some of the same paths. Despite being only two years apart in age, they were never in the same class and never belonged to the same circle of friends. Yet the truth is that much of their childhood and teenage years was spent crossing paths without ever really getting to know one another.

Or at least, that's what we like to think.

It's quite possible that we crossed paths at a local gathering, on a café terrace, in a coffee shop, or in some school photograph where one of us appears blurred in the background of the other's picture. After all, in Alenquer, everyone knows someone who knows someone.

At the age of 18, our lives took completely different directions. Diogo moved to Lisbon to study Veterinary Medicine, while Sara headed to Santarém to pursue a degree in Nursing. For years, we built our own paths, made new friends, embraced new experiences, and wrote separate chapters of the same story, without ever imagining that one day those chapters would come together.

In between, we may have crossed paths a few more times. Perhaps at a Christmas party, perhaps through mutual friends, perhaps in some of the very places we both frequented with family and friends. But for some reason, the right moment took its time to arrive.

And when we say it took its time, we really mean it.

Because, after a few persistent attempts (and, according to Diogo, strategically brilliant ones), it was finally at Christmas 2023 that we met face to face and truly started talking. This time, we were no longer just two people from the same town. We were two people ready to discover that we had far more in common than either of us had ever imagined.

What began as a conversation quickly grew into a partnership that brought us all the way to Saudi Arabia, and eventually into a certainty: we wanted to keep discovering the world side by side.

And that is how two people from Alenquer, who had spent years living parallel lives, finally chose to follow the same path.

This is where our story begins, and the “I Do” is just around the corner.