Tammie and Suzanne Lindsay first met 25 years ago in their native Maryland. In fact, that’s where Suzanne still lives, even after their 2019 wedding, though Tammie continues to call Clearwater home.
It’s been a long journey for the couple, full of twists and turns leading to their eventual marriage. Suzanne was a recent college graduate in Maryland and Tammie was about to enter college when they met in 1996.
Being slightly older, Suzanne viewed herself as a mentor to Tammie, offering advice to the younger woman as she began studying at the University of Tampa. “I wanted to be helpful,” Suzanne says. “I would check in and see how things were going.”
Their friendship grew from there. “It was more kind of like keeping in touch,” Tammie says. “Back in that day, it was writing letters. Then, there was the first cell phone, where if you did text, you had to pay for every text. If we had phone calls, it was after 7 p.m. because it was cheaper.”
She remained in Florida after graduating from UT. But she and Suzanne remained friends, talking and visiting when they could.
“We kept in touch forever,” she explains. “There were times when we would talk nonstop every day. Then a year or two would pass, maybe even longer. Just… life happened. We lived our lives, but then when we would reconnect it was like no time was lost.”
Eventually, they both married other women – occasionally meeting up over the years and spending time as couples – and they each had children. Then, they went their longest stretch without speaking.
“About eight years,” Tammie recalls, “maybe more.”
With social media, it was easier to stay connected without really talking, she adds, noting that there were the occasional Facebook interactions as they easily kept tabs on one another.
They began speaking regularly again in 2016 when both were facing rough patches in their first marriages.
“We were just talking as friends and helping each other through those relationship challenges,” Tammie says. “Both of us knowing that the relationship we were both in, neither one was healthy for us. We couldn’t see it for ourselves, but each of us saw it for the other.”
They had known each other so long that when a romantic relationship between them blossomed, it caught them both off guard.
“It literally took us by surprise,” Tammie says. “It was overwhelming, but there was no question.”
They had one more hurdle as they began their relationship: they lived in different states. Tammie owns a home in Clearwater, while Suzanne has a home in Maryland.
Their children, who now range in age from 11 to 14, are also split between the states and they knew it would be a long time – after they all graduated high school – before they could merge households. That means there’s plenty of travel involved, but “we’ve made it work. Our kids are in separate states, so I can’t move my two that I have to Maryland, and she can’t move hers to Florida,” Tammie said. “We can’t just uproot them. So, we go back and forth. It’s hard, but worth it.”
Knowing it would be years before they could call the same state home, they still planned a life together and talked about marriage. Though they openly discussed their plans, Suzanne kept it a secret when she purchased their preferred engagement rings and proposed while they were on a cruise to Jamaica, popping the question at Dunn’s Rivers Falls.
“It’s a 900-foot high waterfall that you literally walk up,” Tammie says.
Suzanne adds, “They make you sign a waiver of, like, death. This is going to be fun, but you can die… And they wouldn’t let you take anything with you, just your person and your water shoes. I had to keep the ring hidden the whole time in my purse.”
She kept the purse in a locker while they hiked. After they climbed the falls, she had to sneak back to her locker to get the ring.
“It was symbolic of our whole relationship,” Suzanne says. “There were all these twists and turns, and it didn’t happen immediately, but when we got there, it was beautiful and wonderful.”
They planned a traditional wedding in Baltimore, where they have many friends and family. Their ceremony was the first same-sex wedding to take place at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Parkville. Afterwards, they held their reception at the Rusty Scupper in Inner Harbor.
The couple found ways to involve their blended families in the wedding. Two of their daughters were flower girls, while their other daughter and son were the ring bearers, carrying family Bibles down the aisle with the wedding bands.
“The kids love each other. They get along amazingly,” Tammie says.
Since then, they’ve continued to build their lives together long distance. In many ways, the pandemic has made it easier for their families to spend time together because the kids were attending virtual school and could do their coursework from anywhere.
“The pandemic is a horrific time, but it actually gave us more time as a family,” Suzanne says. “I’ve spent so much time driving. There was one instance where I drove the two Florida kids home, went to bed and got up at four o’clock the next morning and drove back, because we weren’t putting anyone on a plane.”
Engagement Date: July 26, 2018
Wedding Date: July 27, 2019
Wedding Ceremony: St. John’s Lutheran Church in Parkville, MD
Wedding Reception: Rusty Scupper in Baltimore, MD
Officiant: Pastor Leslie Radius
Photography: Bobby Anderson
Catering: Rusty Scupper
Cake: Merengue Cake Studio
Theme: “You’re the key to my heart.”
Wedding Song: “A Thousand Years”
Colors: Plum and silver