On Love: ‘If you believe it, you have to go after it.’

As his Fort Rucker assignment came to an end, he began to look for jobs in Washington. In October 2011, Sydnor moved to Arlington and began working on Capitol Hill.

“That was a big thing that he moved here,” says Blakely, now 32. “My whole mantra is: If you want to do something or if you believe it, you have to go after it.”

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But just as he arrived, Blakely’s life went into overdrive. She and her sister were preparing to open a shop in Georgetown and baking for the holidays. Once the store, Pie Sisters, debuted in January, she routinely woke at 3:30 a.m. and worked 18-hour days even after their other sister, Cat, joined the business.

Sydnor, also 32, often woke up early to help bake or wash dishes before going to his job, and he’d welcome Blakely home at night only to serve her dinner and put her to bed.

“It was like dating a zombie for a little while,” he says. “A good-looking zombie, but still, a zombie.”

But they both believed in the endeavor — Sydnor had helped lay the floors of the new shop.

“We were just so overwhelmed with the shop and things going on, it was just nice to have that relationship,” Blakely says. “He was very understanding and laid-back.”

In March, he brought out his family’s ring and asked if she’d like to go pick out a new setting. Blakely wasn’t sure if it was a proposal, so Sydnor left the room, came back again and got down on one knee.

He thought she was nuts when she said she wanted a wedding in October, but Blakely knew she’d do things last-minute one way or another, and throwing a party seemed like a great distraction from the stress of the pie shop.

On Oct. 13, Blakely and Sydnor were married at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Georgetown, where her parents had been married and her grandparents were buried. After the ceremony, their guests hopped a bus to Blakely’s family home in Great Falls, where they listened to bluegrass music, danced in a heated barn and, of course, ate pie.

At the reception, Sydnor’s sister played guitar while Blakely’s two sisters sang a song by Mumford & Sons. The song was called “Home.”

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