Lakewood Ranch couple zigs and zags to marriage

Although they knew their wedding ceremony wouldn’t go exactly as planned, Greenbrook’s Marty Satz and Crystal Avery realized it could be a bright spot during a difficult year.

Their bright spot came the morning of Dec. 14 in front of the huge, decorated tree on Main Street at Lakewood Ranch.

As people shopped on Main Street, and restaurant owners prepared for the lunchtime crowd, Satz and Avery said,“I do.” 

“It’s good that we’re able to still celebrate our marriage together, even through the pandemic,” Satz said. “The pandemic doesn’t make your life stop. It just makes you zig and zag a little bit, but you still get to reward yourself with marriage and love, and you just do it safely.” 

It was a year ago that Satz got down on one knee in front of a decorated tree by Michaels at University Town Center and proposed to Avery.

When it came time to pick a setting to take their vows, they thought the Main Street at Lakewood Ranch Christmas tree provided the perfect backdrop. It provided festive decorations and a quiet place to celebrate in front of their children.

“It will be memorable,” Avery said. “We’ll always remember that day (Dec. 14) as the day he proposed, and then it’s the day we both united.”

The couple met online 16 years ago. Satz was living in Florida, and Avery was in Indiana. Satz and Avery found it wasn’t the right time for them due to distance and where they were in their lives, with Satz ending his previous marriage and Avery taking care of her children.

In July 2019, Satz and Avery reconnected.

“It was kind of like we picked up where we left off,” Avery said. “He’s my best friend.”

When Satz decided to move from Michigan to Lakewood Ranch in November 2019, the two moved in together.

“We started remembering everything about each other,” Satz said. “We were talking for hours on end each night, and speaking turned into FaceTiming. It was the right time in my life for me to change and reposition myself geographically because I’d been in Florida for so long before.”

The pandemic caused a few obstacles, including not being able to have all the children and other family members attend the wedding.

They had originally planned to get married in April, but the pandemic caused them to push the wedding further into the year in hopes of being able to have everyone in the family together for the ceremony.

Satz said they decided they couldn’t keep pushing the wedding date back because the pandemic didn’t have an end in sight, and they didn’t want to wait to be married anymore.

Satz’s children, Hunter and Justin, who live in Michigan, were unable to attend the wedding, so they watched through a video call.

For their honeymoon, the newlyweds decided to go to St. Augustine for four days to tour the city and see the city’s historical monuments.

They said it will give them an opportunity to bond as newlyweds before having to return to the hustle and bustle of life.