Sonja Long followed the guitarist, who led her to the drummer.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “He had long hair and was wearing a fedora and he had a big long stick in his hand and he was sitting on a tree stump.”
He says: “She was really hot. I was kind of surprised she was that short because I had been hearing about her and I had in my mind that she was taller.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I was really excited to have all my friends there and family all in one place. We had people from several different states who came, and it’s a really good memory of having all those people there in the same place.”
He says: “We decided to take a bubble bath to just relax from the wedding and everything. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t get any instruction on how to do a bubble bath properly. I dumped in half the bottle and the suds were going all over the floor.”
Advice for a happy marriage:
She says: “When you’re dating somebody and deciding how your life is going to be later on, think about marrying somebody that you feel like you can go through really hard times with.”
He says: “Have a strong relationship with God and be a selfless servant to your wife and to God.”
She and the drummer, as it turns out, march to the same beat.
Sonja was 17 and in Bushnell, Ill., with her family for the annual Cornerstone Christian music festival in 1999. She and her sister meandered through Cornerstone Farm, wandering around tents and groups of people gathering for concerts.
"We were like, 'Let's go find a guy with a guitar and ask him if he'll serenade us.' We just thought it would be funny," Sonja says. They found the guitarist they were looking for, and he played a song for them as he was walking down the street. "I actually got a big crush on him," Sonja says.
She and the guitarist exchanged email addresses before she headed home to Siloam Springs with her family at the end of the week. They got to know each other, and when the Longs returned to Illinois for Cornerstone the next year, they got together. That's when he introduced her to some of his friends -- and more importantly, to his best friend's brother, Justin Smith.
"I remember thinking, 'He's a fun little guy,'" Sonja says of Justin, who was only 14 and lived in Marshfield, Wis. "He and his friend had these big long sticks and they were walking around pretending they were wizards."
Justin's take on that first meeting was different.
"When I first met her, I was like, 'Wow, she's way out of my league,'" he says. "I knew that. She was really attractive."
When Sonja and the guitarist broke up in 2004, Justin was there. Justin had just gotten dumped and "was hurting pretty bad," he says. "I said, 'Hey Sonja, I want to give you my number in case you need to talk to somebody because I've been through the same thing and I like you. You're a nice girl and I want to help.'"
In 2005, Justin moved to Los Angeles to get his master's degree in film acting. He invited her to come out for a visit over spring break. Sonja was ecstatic about a vacation from Gentry, where she was teaching elementary school. Recalls Justin: "I was ecstatic that she was coming to visit. I was like, 'Oh my gosh. She doesn't even know that I'm already in love with her.'"
They went to Universal Studios, the New York Film Academy, Venice Beach, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign and Beverly Hills -- and she began to feel a connection. Justin visited Sonja in Arkansas a few months later, and shortly after that, he moved to Wisconsin to play drums with a band.
"It happened to be a lot closer to Sonja than L.A.," he says. His band took a three-month break, and he moved to Arkansas so he could see her every day.
"We wanted to see how we would be together in the same proximity in the city," he says. She then moved to Wisconsin, though not into Justin's place, and they started getting more serious.
Justin, a fourth-generation logger, proposed to Sonja in the woods on his parents' property in Marshfield. "I carved our initials in a tree with a heart around it and an arrow through it like Robin Hood because we both liked the cartoon Robin Hood," Justin says. "And then I brought her out to that tree and I just knelt down in the woods and asked her to marry me." They exchanged their vows in Bella Vista on Nov. 5, 2006.
They moved back to Los Angeles briefly after they were married but have called Siloam Springs home for most of their marriage. Justin is a professional drummer, recording for various clients, playing for their church, Community Christian Fellowship, and giving private lessons.
Sonja left teaching after their son Coltrane was diagnosed with cancer in 2014. He died in November 2015. They have another son, Jackson, 6, and a daughter, Magnolia, almost 3 months.
"We trust in God," Justin says. "It's hard to trust him when a lot of our prayers weren't answered in the way we thought was right, but we still trust Him and our faith goes up and down."
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High Profile on 11/20/2016