After ending a relationship eight years ago, Riki Johnson-Rickwalt decided it was time to meet new people. Though she wasn’t ready for anything serious, she created an account on Plenty of Fish, thinking that could be a fun way to make some new connections.
“I was just trying to have fun. I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I was just trying to raise my kids and work and deal with me,” Riki says.
A California native who had been living in Michigan for a year at the time, her interest was piqued when she came across the profile of a woman whose main picture was a beach scene.
“It was a really pretty island with a beach,” she recalls. “Me being from the beach – I’m from San Diego – I loved it. I clicked on it, but there were no pictures of her.”
She immediately sent a message to the mystery woman who would eventually become her wife.
“The first thing I said to her was, ‘Why would you not put your picture on here if you’re trying to meet a girl? That is the stupidest thing. People are going to want to know what you look like,’” Riki says.
Sukie Johnson-Rickwalt didn’t respond at first and Riki went on a few dates with other women. Eventually, though, Sukie answered her message – and put a picture up.
“And she was really cute,” Riki says.
The two started talking regularly. Sukie was spending the summer at a family home on an island in Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac. Meanwhile, Riki lived hours away in the Detroit suburbs. Still, they did everything they could to get to know one another – video chatting, texting, phone calls.
“We talked back and forth every day, but she was on this island and couldn’t date,” Riki remembers.
Which was fine with Sukie, who was initially hesitant about getting into a relationship. She had just signed up for the online dating site to see if an ex-girlfriend had an account.
“I was not ready for another relationship,” she says. “I had lost someone I had been with for 10 years. She died of cancer. And then I had some other small relationships after that. I just wasn’t ready.”
Still, she was drawn to Riki and felt compelled to get to know her, despite Riki being her opposite and someone she wouldn’t normally date.
“We’d talk and I’d hear all the kids yelling, the dog in the background barking,” Sukie says. “I knew the craziness, which normally I wouldn’t be drawn to, but I was.”
When she had to leave the island for a family wedding, it was an opportunity for them to meet. So, Sukie invited Riki as her date.
“The first time I met her was at a hotel room with her mom,” Riki says. “We met and we hit it off. Like, I just knew just then and there this was somebody that I wanted to get to know.”
The first thing that crossed her mind when she met Sukie was “she’s short, but she’s really cute,” Riki adds.
Sukie says, “I think those were the first things she ever said to me in person.”
Though they hit it off, it wasn’t an easy first meeting for the pair. Sukie failed to tell Riki in advance that it was a Lutheran wedding and that her family was rather conservative.
“I wasn’t even thinking I needed to tell her it was a conservative wedding … I’m used to it. My family always kind of looked down on me, but it was my niece’s wedding and I wasn’t going to miss it,” Sukie explains.
Riki, who was casually dressed with her tattoos showing, felt out of place.
“I was so uncomfortable at that wedding surrounded by all these straight Lutheran people, so I took her to the bathroom, shoved her up against the wall and started making out with her,” she says.
“I was like, ‘I’ve got to do something to break this up. I’m freaking out here.’”
The connection they had was real, and they kept talking after the wedding. And when the summer ended, Suzie moved back to the mainland.
Then, when Riki lost her trailer not long after this, she and her teens moved in with Sukie. The couple has been together ever since, despite the “chaos” and “ups and downs,” Riki says.
Several months after their initial meeting, they were visiting a friend’s home. While the friend was out, they decided to enjoy a soak in the garden tub.
“We were talking and stuff and enjoying the hot water,” Riki says.
Sukie adds, “We were cuddling and enjoying time together and I just knew. I didn’t have a ring or anything and I hadn’t thought about it before, but I just asked her to marry me.”
Later that day, she borrowed a ring from their friend to present to Riki.
“It was so sweet. It wasn’t premeditated at all,” Riki notes.
Originally, the couple started planning a big wedding. In the end, they married at Detroit City Hall – on the sixth anniversary of their first meeting – and celebrated by taking a cruise to the Bahamas.
In July, the couple moved from Michigan to Tampa, where they took a job managing a storage center and live onsite.
“We love it,” Riki says. “It’s so relaxed. The people are more friendly down here. It’s nice and chill and everybody seems to be pretty happy.”
“It’s really different for me,” Sukie adds. “I never thought I’d move or live anywhere other than Michigan, but Riki pushed me out of my comfort zone and here we are. I love it.”
Engagement Date: Jan. 2014
Wedding Date: Aug. 22, 2019
Wedding Venue: Detroit City Hall
Officiant: Detroit Judge
Honeymoon: Cruise in the Bahamas
Honeymoon Date: Aug. 2019
Do you have an interesting wedding or engagement story you’d like to share with Watermark readers? If so, email the details to Editor@WatermarkOnline.com for consideration as a future feature.
