It only took one lunch date for Vanessa and Michele Taylor to fall in love.
The Baltimore natives met online in 2005. Michele made the first move, reaching out to Vanessa.
“It was Yahoo! Personals back then,” Vanessa recalls. She was apprehensive but says now “I’m glad we did. Neither of us said it to the other, but there was just this connection that day.
“A little voice in my head told me, ‘She needs you to love her,’ and she fell in love with me that day,” she continues. “We were both caught off guard by it.”
Vanessa always planned to move to Florida. When she first met Michele, she put a 90-day time limit on their relationship because she hoped to relocate.
But their feelings developed quickly. As it got closer for her to leave Maryland, Michele asked her to reconsider.
“She was like, ‘I want to go with you wherever you’re going,’” Vanessa said. “But she was afraid of hurricanes in Florida. So, we compromised and agreed on Atlanta.”
Michele had always dreamed of opening a coffeeshop. After moving, the couple opened a café and venue for LGBTQ artists, Sadie and Jezebel’s – a nod to their aliases – in Kennesaw, an Atlanta suburb. The business grew quickly and attracted performers from across the country.
Then, Michele, who had battled drug addiction and gotten clean by the time she was 19 years old, relapsed when at 34. For a while, Vanessa and their five kids stood by her, but this became more difficult as time wore on.
“I became a different person. Addiction does that to people,” Michele said. “Our relationship changed. She stuck by me as long as she possibly could until she had to move back to Maryland because I was totally out of control.”
Her relapse lasted seven years. During that time, she and Vanessa were broken up. Michele was also homeless for a period, but fought to overcome it along with her addiction.
“I went from homeless to living in a shelter to finally putting myself back together,” she says. By then, Vanessa had moved on and married someone else.
“I was totally resentful of that. I thought no matter what she would wait for me and that wasn’t the case,” Michele says. “I was devastated. I thought we’d get back together.”
Michele eventually entered another relationship as well. “I lost faith in the whole love thing when I realized I was going to lose her forever,” she says. “Some days I felt like giving up. Then, I’d tell myself, ‘Michele, you have your whole life ahead of you. You have children,’” she says.
They remained close as they co-parented their children. Vanessa also forgave her for the years of addiction that tore them apart, remaining happy in their separate relationships, for a while.
Vanessa’s spouse then ended their marriage “out of the blue,” she says. Michele happened to be single at the time as well.
“Things just fell into place,” Vanessa says.
It was a major health scare that officially drove them back together. In March 2016, Vanessa nearly died from a heart condition. She was terrified of being by herself and Michele was devastated that she wasn’t there to care for Vanessa.
They grew even closer after this health crisis, and by 2018, they moved in together so they could co-parent their youngest daughter easier.
“We both loved each other. There was no question about that. It always made others uncomfortable. They could feel it,” Vanessa says. “Living together and coparenting that closely together again, everything just started to feel right.”
Her health scare also inspired her to finally make the move to Florida. She relocated to Tampa in November during the COVID-19 pandemic because her employer allowed her to work remotely.
“My job went fully remote, and it made it easy for me to get down here. I’ve been trying to get to Florida for 16 years. Nothing was going to stop me from moving to Florida,” Vanessa says.
The couple became engaged in November 2019. Because the pandemic pushed back their wedding plans, they decided to elope in January, marrying on the beach of Anna Maria Island.
Michele remains in Maryland, though, as their youngest daughter still has one more year of high school left. She’ll move to Tampa in October. In the meantime, they visit each other frequently, communicating often over text messaging, Zoom and Facetime.
“We went all this time without being together and know we love each other,” Vanessa says. “It took 16 years to finally get to this point. We can ride this out to October when she gets down here.”
Engagement Date: Nov. 22, 2019
Elopement Decision Date: Dec. 23, 2020
Wedding Date: Jan. 22, 2021
Wedding Cake: Nothing Bundt Cakes
Wedding Venue: Anna Maria Island beach
Wedding Night Stay: The Avalon
Day After Brunch: The Hollander
Officiant: Rev. Robin White
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