15 Heartwarming Love Stories That Made 2016 A Little Bit Better

    Love actually is all around us.

    Terri Pous
    by Terri Pous

    BuzzFeed Staff

    1. An engaged Syrian refugee couple had an emotional reunion in their new home of Norway after a months-long separation.

    Bradley Secker

    Nader and Omar met while refugees in Turkey, and got engaged just before Nader got political asylum in Norway. As same-sex marriage is illegal in both Turkey and their home country of Syria, they faced many obstacles applying for asylum as a couple. They now live together in Bergen, Norway.

    2.

    View this video on YouTube
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    3. A husband painted his pinky finger to support his wife, who had to have hers amputated.

    facebook.com

    Libby Sanders, who had to have her pinky finger amputated after a freak accident in February, mentioned to her husband Matt that she forgets she doesn't have to paint it anymore, which bums her out.

    His response? "I will be your surrogate pinky. You can paint my pinky to match your nails for the rest of our lives." Awwwww.

    4. This couple went on a romantic Valentine's Day date to Taco Bell.

    imgur.com

    Daniel and Cassie made a three-course menu with all of their Taco Bell favorites and gave them fancy new names.

    “They cleaned off a prime window-side table and even dimmed the lights a bit to let the candles help to set the mood,” Daniel said of Taco Bell. “It was a great excuse to get dolled up and get outside our comfort zones."

    5. This Harry Potter-loving couple had an incredibly magical, nerd-tastic wedding.

    Kelly Clarke / SWNS

    They had Azkaban poster place settings, Ferrero Rocher snitch snacks, and included a reading from The Order of the Phoenix in their ceremony.

    6. This couple in their seventies took breathtaking nude portraits, showing the power of love at any age.

    Jade Beall Photography / Via jadebeall.com

    “We wanted to show that wrinkles and aging, sagging body parts are NOT barriers to love unless you let them be," Gerry, 75, said of her photo session with her love, Darwin, 70. "Like fine wine or good cheese, we are more fully ourselves and more full of love in our seventies than we ever were in our thirties and forties."

    7. Rio volunteer Marjorie Enya proposed to her girlfriend, Brazilian rugby player Isadora Cerullo, right after the gold-medal rugby match.

    David Rogers / Getty Images

    Even though Cerullo's team lost the gold to Australia, she won big in love.

    8. A woman hilariously trolled her husband on the inside of his wedding ring.

    Daniel Tallman

    Amanda Tallman had "put it back on" inscribed on her husband's band, much to his delight. "That summarizes Amanda in a nutshell,” Daniel said of the engraving. “We have a very fun and humorous relationship.”

    9. A woman texted her husband everything he said while sleep-talking, to hilarious effect.

    Lindsay Stamhuis

    Lindsay Stamhuis and Aidan Hailes sure do have a lot of fun in bed.

    10. Grandparents Wanda and Joe, who have been married for 63 years, did an adorable photo shoot to celebrate their long marriage.

    Shalyn Nelson of Love, The Nelsons

    <3

    11. These two women kissed in the middle of an anti-Trump protest.

    Hennessy Vandheur / Via instagram.com

    Photographer Hennessy Vandheur caught the powerful moment amid the swaths of protesters along Fifth Avenue on Nov. 9. “It was nice seeing love in the middle of all the chaos," he told BuzzFeed.

    12. This guy publicly defended his fiancé after people body-shamed her in their engagement photos.

    A Kojo Prince

    Mzznaki Tetteh shared her engagement photos on Instagram in June. Some commenters criticized the photo of her fiancé, Kojo Amoah, lifting her up, but both Tetteh and Amoah fired back at the haters.

    13. Andrew Hou, an illustrator, made awesome cartoons to show little moments of love with his wife.

    Andrew Hou

    Andrew, who is Chinese, initially had trouble communicating with his wife Kate, who is Korean, so he sent her doodles at the beginning of their relationship to show how much he cared. Now he has a whole website where he showcases all of the things her love means to him.

    14. This guy made us all laugh by turning his wife's texts into a collage.

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    “After I received the ‘I’M A KOALA!’ text (I still don’t know what that was about, and she doesn’t remember), I had the sudden urge to post a screenshot of the text on Facebook with the caption ‘This is my wife, everyone,’” David Van Beveren told BuzzFeed of his wife, Samantha. “I’d receive random texts or just funny texts in general during conversations we’d have together and figured it would be neat to go post a year’s worth of noteworthy texts for our friends to see.”

    15. And two The Bachelor Australia contestants fell in love with each other instead of the show's star.

    For more Best Of 2016 content, click here!