23-04-2025
Hearts Melt at Reason Couple Recreate Childhood Photo in 'Epic' Love Story
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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A young couple have melted hearts by recreating a photo they took when they first met as children.
Liam Karam, 24, and his fiancee, Alyxandra Hodges, also 24, first met on the Turks and Caicos Islands when they were 12 years old, and they are now engaged to be married.
Karam, originally from Canada, has lived on the islands since he was a baby. In the summer of 2013, he was playing with friends near the tourist hotel The Somerset on Grace Bay, when two girls—one who would end up as Karam's fiancee years later—asked to join their game.
Karam and Hodges had an instant connection, and both confessed having a crush on each other, spending as much time together as they could before Hodges had to return to the U.S. at the end of her vacation.
He recalled to Newsweek that they would meet up in an area of the hotel known as the "breezeway," and "only spent time there."
"Her parents didn't know about me, she would come out of the room and meet me there," he admitted.
When Hodges' family vacation came to an end, she and Karam kept in touch for a long time, but as the years passed, they grew apart—until Karam ended up moving temporarily to the U.S. and took the chance to reach out, when they began dating again.
And when Hodges visited Karam in 2020, she ended up stuck in Turks and Caicos during the lockdown—and against it all, their relationship blossomed.
Then, 10 years after they first met, Karam proposed to Hodges in the "breezeway of the Somerset hotel—the very place we hung out for three days as kids."
Alyxandra Hodges and Liam Karam pose as adults, left, and as children, right.
Alyxandra Hodges and Liam Karam pose as adults, left, and as children, right.
TikTok @aquarliam
"We took all our photos as kids in that breezeway, and it's also where I asked her to marry me 10 years later," Karam said.
"The place has barely changed over the years—they only replaced the upholstery on the seats, but all the furnishing is identical—so it was the perfect opportunity to retake the same photo years later."
In a video shared to Karam's TikTok account @aquarliam on April 19, Hodges sits on a comfortable outdoor sofa of the hotel, with palm trees decorating the background, as Karam sets up the camera and then prepares to join her on the sofa.
But before he puts his arm around her, he removes a shoe, and the reason is immediately apparent, as the video then changes to the couple as kids, their arms around each other on the sofa, and the teenage Karam wearing only one shoe.
"My fiancee and I wanted to redo a photo that someone took of us when we first met 12 years ago," Karam wrote on the video. He added in the caption: "I have no idea why I was only wearing one shoe at the time, but I'm sure it was a wild night."
Turks and Caicos is a British overseas territory made up of more than 40 cays and islands, according to tourism website Visit Turks and Caicos Islands. Located between the Bahamas and Dominican Republic and with a population of around 50,000, it is a diverse archipelago that uses the U.S. dollar as currency, and has English as the official language.
TikTok users loved the video, awarding the clip more than 24,000 likes as commenters shared their own stories.
"Me and my husband met in a skating rink. He went to a different middle school. Didn't see him again for four months until he transferred to my school. Been together 23 years and two kiddos," one user wrote.
Others were in awe at the couple's story, one calling it "so epic," and another describing it as "one of the sweetest and purest love stories."
A third posted: "You have to redo this every 5 years or so, this is too sweet!"
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