Road to Rosado: Patrick and Vanessa find home in each other’s hearts

On a particularly unimpressive day in 2016, Patrick Rosado laid eyes on Vanessa Chambers for the first time. Amidst the rows of merchandise in the Home Depot where they both worked, they began a casual friendship, though Patrick secretly hoped for more. Bolstered by their mutual friends, the two spent the next year getting to know each other platonically, until Patrick – who is ethnically Ecuadorian – planned a trip back home.

“When he went on the trip we were still friends, but he would update me about how the trip is going and all his family members that he got to see. Ecuador is huge and he was travelling from city to city; so he was kinda giving me almost like a postcard from each city,” Vanessa recalled.

Chiming in, Patrick said,“I would go to different parts and think [of] Vanessa and say, ‘Oh, she’d really love this part’; so I’d take a picture and send it to her. Going to Ecuador was kind of bittersweet because I was excited to go and see family and everyone that’s back home, but also, I was leaving Vanessa because I was gone for like three weeks.”

Fed up with being 6,925 kilometres apart, Patrick and Vanessa went on their first date the day after he returned to Canada.

Nestled in a cosy Italian restaurant, the two began testing if their chemistry could be more than just virtual.

Though Patrick was a ball of nerves, Vanessa explained, “I don’t know if I was particularly nervous. I think I was more so ‘let’s see where this goes’, because if we get to know each other and it doesn’t work then it’s all right, because we’re friends. I was a little giddy but not really nervous.”

Sparks flew, and the pair became a couple a few weeks later.

Settling quickly into a routine, it was no time until Patrick uttered the three magic words. Sharing when he knew, he said, “I realised that I was in love because she was just her and not trying to put on some show or trying to impress.”

Similarly, Vanessa said, “For me, it was when I realised that this is the person I can be 100 per cent myself around without the fear of judgement, or feeling like he’s gonna second-guess me or my opinions, or not value who I am. I didn’t get that at all. Just the ability to be who I was and still feel like love wasn’t off the table. I never felt like he was gonna pull away because I was being who I was.”

Being opposite sides of the same coin, they complemented each other perfectly. After five years together, Patrick decided to pop the question while they were on vacation in Cuba in 2022.

“It was the morning that we were about to leave. We were on the beach, taking outfit pictures,” Vanessa recalled. “It was early [and] the sun was about to come up. I thought we were done taking pictures and he was walking behind me. He then pretends to drop something and gets down on one knee, but I am looking for the thing that he dropped.”

Once Vanessa caught on, they both welled up with tears as Patrick professed his love.

“I wanted it to be on a beach, and although it wasn’t in Jamaica, we were in the tropics. Leading up to that moment, I saw how connected Vanessa was to her family and to Jamaica, being from there. So, I wanted it to be special, and I knew being on a beach would have the same feel for us,” Patrick explained.

Despite waiting out the ravages of the global pandemic, Vanessa Chambers and Patrick Rosado were wed on May 18, 2024, at Walkers Wood Methodist Church in St Ann, Jamaica.

With the ceremony and reception planned entirely by Claudette Linda of Exquisite Moments, the pair shared just how special it was for them to tie the knot in Vanessa’s home town.

“We were very intentional about where we chose. We got married at my family’s church in Walkers Wood, and the reception was at what would have been my grandparents’ house,” Vanessa shared.

While her grandparents drew their last breaths before the nuptials could take place, they say the familial energy was just as strong.

“Sometimes there’ll be things in the back of your head thinking, ‘I wish this had gone better’, but no, this was the perfect day,” Patrick shared.

Now, as the two families become one, the pair say their life ahead, filled with travel, is looking particularly rosy.

Vanessa explained, “Outside of being a couple, we’re like best friends. We’re just excited to build our life, build our home.”

Playing on his career as a contractor and his wife’s as an interior designer, Patrick joked, “Build our life, and then literally build our home.”

shanel.lemmie@gleanerjm.com