On a picturesque day in November 2023, a love story more magical than a rom-com unfolded at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu. Bridesmaids in golden-brown dresses fluttered around the venue, which was elegantly adorned with white crochet curtains, sweet treat displays, and shimmering waterfalls. The bride, Michelle Alacon Krakirian, made her entrance with bouquets of pastel roses lining her path. As Michelle began reading her vows, the camera caught teardrops welling in the eyes of her husband-to-be, Shahan Krakirian. Eight years earlier, Shahan had fallen in love with her playful charm, but he never imagined she would surprise him on their wedding day by reading her vows in his native Armenian. Their touching story was shared by the Armenian Reporter.
Michelle is of Filipino descent, while Shahan is Armenian. The two first met in 2015 at a Las Vegas birthday party hosted by their mutual friend, Mark. Shahan and Mark grew up as best friends as Shahan’s dad and Mark’s mother studied in the same school. On the other side, Michelle met Mark while attending UC Irvine. Although Shahan also went to UC Irvine, they never crossed paths until this birthday party. “It felt like we were meant to meet. We had been together for years before we got married,” Michelle told the Armenian Reporter.
When they decided to tie the knot, Michelle came up with the idea of surprising her to-be husband by reading vows in his native language, Western Armenian. “At first, I thought I’d just learn a one-liner in Armenian to surprise Shahan, but I realized that if I was going to do it, I might as well go all in,” she said. It was difficult finding a tutor, but she did find one, named Shushan.
For four months, she dedicated herself to learning the language from Shushan while managing to keep a secret from Shahan. “I had flashcards and notes that I kept hidden from him. There were times I thought he’d caught me, but luckily, he didn’t,” she recalled, laughing. In their wedding video, shared by filmmaker Chris Mai, owner of Goodco Studios, Michelle can be seen passionately reading her vows while the rest of the crowd appears to be choking with tears, especially Shahan. “There was not a dry eye in that moment,” Chris wrote in the video caption.
Speaking of Shahan getting emotional, Michelle said, “I knew he’d cry — he’s emotional — but I didn’t expect everyone else to. People who didn’t even understand Armenian came up to me afterward, telling me they were crying during the ceremony.” She said that everyone resonated with the raw emotion of the moment. “I think it was the combination of his reaction and his parents’ reaction. They were so touched by the effort I put in. His family has always been very welcoming to me, and they never pressured me to learn Armenian, but they were so appreciative of the fact that I did.”
Armenian Reporter reports that a year after their unforgettable wedding, Michelle and Shahan are expecting their first child. Excited about raising a child in a multicultural household, Michelle, who is 38 weeks pregnant, said, “We want her to learn Armenian, Tagalog - my native language — and English. It’s important to us that she embraces both of her cultural identities.” She believes that blending cultures in relationships is a rewarding experience.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.