Love: Leashia Rahr & Hezekiah Lewis

Hezekiah agreed to a double date with Leashia as a favor to a Villanova University football teammate, who was seeing a friend of hers.

But from the moment in 1996 when she rode up on her bicycle for an introduction, he realized that actually, his friend had done him the favor.

"I knew she was something special," he said.

Then a sophomore, Hezekiah hadn't found much in common with many classmates. "I came from a very rough area (in San Bernardino, Calif.), and there were not a lot of minorities on campus," he said.

But Leashia, then a freshman, also grew up in a distressed neighborhood, in Syracuse, N.Y. She was also an athlete - she ran track.

"She was very grounded, and confident in who she was."

Hezekiah seemed nice, but Leashia immediately gave him two penalties.

Their second date, also a double, was to a campus movie. It had barely started when he excused himself for study group. By the time he returned, the film was nearly over.

And he was a football player. "I had my own stereotypes," Leashia admitted.

Then one day, Leashia heard Hezekiah debating a friend on a Villanovan letter to the editor that said African American athletes were isolating themselves from other African American students on campus. "He was so passionate, confident, smart. I could feel a power from him," she said. "That was really when I was like, 'This guy is something different.' "

Despite her change of heart, by second semester, they hardly saw each other.

Then came summer.

Both stayed on campus for sports and classes. Hezekiah double-majored in sociology and communications, with minors in business, Africana studies, and theater. Leashia double-majored in human services and sociology, with minors in Africana studies, education, and psychology.

Leashia's friend Priscilla had long been friends with Hezekiah, without knowing he and Leashia had dated. She asked Leashia to stop by her friend's dorm.

"Why did you bring the love of my life to my room?" Hezekiah asked Priscilla later. Naturally, Priscilla told Leashia, who accepted Hezekiah's second invitation to the movies.

"It was a totally different kind of date," she said.

"Yeah," Hezekiah joked. "I stayed!"

By fall, they were a couple.

Leashia always knew there was another girl in Hezekiah's life: Ekiah, his daughter, born his freshman year.

Having grown up without his father, Hezekiah pledged to put Ekiah's needs above his own. Having lost her own father to colon cancer when she was just 14, Leashia supported that conviction and everything it meant. Especially since early on, she came to love Ekiah, too.

Hezekiah, now 37, earned a master's degree in theater from Villanova before returning to California to earn an MFA from UCLA's film school. He owns Ekiah Productions and teaches film at Villanova.

Leashia, now 36, earned her master's in secondary school counseling from Villanova and is now a counselor at Conestoga High School, where she also coaches track.

While he was in Los Angeles, she bought a home in Norristown, where Hezekiah visited as often as possible. During summers, he worked on film projects that took him as far away as Ghana. She helped, and is listed as a producer of Warrior Queen, the story of Yaa Asantewaa, who led her people in a battle for freedom from the British.

Hezekiah moved back East in 2007. Four years ago, he bought the home in Point Breeze that he and Leashia now share.

It was not easy, and far from quick, but Ekiah and the adults around her wove themselves into one family.

Ekiah's mom, Euridici, and her now-husband Brian were visiting Leashia and Hezekiah when Brian proposed. They all talk nearly daily on the phone, and spend Christmases together.

That bonding was an important milestone for Hezekiah. Another came when he realized he'd saved enough to put Ekiah through college, and she was accepted at Villanova, where she is now a sophomore.

On Jan. 25, 2014, Hezekiah invited Leashia to go to Villanova, where he said he was speaking to football recruits.

They walked together through the light snow, and he asked about her favorite books.

"It looks like somebody dropped something in the middle of the field," Hezekiah said when they reached the stadium.

Leashia picked up a book-shaped box.

"I hope we can write the next chapter of our lives together," Hezekiah said.

Inside was a smaller box.

Hezekiah knelt. "Leashia Marie Rahr, will you marry me?" he asked.

Leashia stood in stunned silence.

"Yes or no?" Hezekiah prompted.

"Yes!" Leashia said.

"SHE SAID YES!" he shouted. There was a joyful noise, and people began pouring out of the football tunnel: Friends, his sister, Ekiah, and at last their mothers, holding hands.

The couple married in a flower garden. African drums and strings played. Nieces and the children of their closest friends twirled green streamers.

"I am honored to stand before you filled with pride, and appreciate that I am the man who gets to hold your hands and look into your eyes," Hezekiah told Leashia.

"Your off-comments make me laugh, our time spent together makes me happy. My life would be boring without you," she told him, before vowing to love him and Ekiah always.

The reception for 170 was held in Connelly Center.

During his best-man speech, Hezekiah's brother Traison praised him for being the first in their family to graduate from college, and then the first to marry. "One thing we never saw was a positive, male figure that was married," Hezekiah explained. "I'm not ashamed of our history, and neither is he. But I was so touched when he said that cycle is now broken."

Just before the wedding started, Leashia and Hezekiah each read a letter from the other. "After reading that letter, with him pouring his heart out to me, I just needed to have a connection with him," she said. She looked straight into his eyes the whole time she walked down the aisle.

Hezekiah couldn't take his eyes off her, either. "When I saw her in that dress, the first time seeing her, it just elevated the beauty," he said. "That's when I knew it was real."

A bargain: The photographer and videographer are friends of Hezekiah's who refused to set a price. The couple gave them an honorarium.

The splurge: Villanova's catering isn't cheap, the couple said. But their request that Chef Winston - who cooked there when they were students - handle the soul food-inspired deliciousness, was honored.

Two weeks in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Venice, Italy.

Officiant: The Rev. Rashad Grove, First Baptist Church of Wayne, Wayne

Venue: Ceremony, private location; reception: Villanova Room at Connelly Center, Villanova University

Catering: Villanova Catering

Photo: Nema Etebar, Philadelphia and New York

Video: John Mullany of Ripples in the Pond Productions, Phoenixville; and Rob Jennings of 267 Productions, Philadelphia

Music: Electric Grioland, Philadelphia

Dress: Philly Bride, Philadelphia

Planner: Nikki Hornsberry, Rock Solid Events and Designs, Philadelphia