Who’s your favorite Pandemic girl. Yeah, it’s Julie Nolke! And despite seeing so many videos about awkward and failed relationships, her romantic life in real, real life, is actually pretty awesome. Hear any wedding bells? She’s married!
Julie Nolke married her long-time boyfriend Samuel D. Larson, or just Sam, in June 2019, after six years of dating. The couple lives in Toronto and makes videos together. The reason you don’t see Sam more often in her videos is that he is the director of her videos, although he used to make cameo appearances quite often before they were married.
Knowing Julie, it seems she doesn’t like the label husband or even boyfriend (or maybe Sam doesn’t). But she uses the term “best friend” and also “partner” when she feels like it. She even called her wedding as the time of getting “matching rings” rather than using the word “wedding” itself.
So, Who Is Sam Larson, Julie Nolke’s Boyfriend-Turned Husband
Born in 1990 in Alberta, Julie’s partner Sam Larson is a director/filmmaker and a videographer that he became with a vision since grade school. He often experimented with his videography skills at such a young age, and his roots in painting and drawing certainly helped him develop a unique visual style to his videos.
As advertised by Nolke.
Photo Source: Sam Larson, Instagram
Upon finishing film school, he became the founder of his production company Oleander Films and has worked with the likes of Tastemade, The Hollywood Reporter, The CBC and Billboard. And remember, Julie’s foodie personality (she got it from her dad) got her to collaborate with Tastemade as well, as they initially worked part-time.
Throughout his little-known career, Sam has created some masterpieces of his own, specifically Oil Men, which starred Julie Nolke herself and was worked on by both Julie’s parents and Sam’s parents. In less than seven minutes, Oil Men provides an honest and conflicting look at the tough decisions a oil worker has to make between the environment with the future of the family or the economy. Watch it on Vimeo here.
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Another significant project he was taking the camera with him was the CBC web series called Forage back in 2019. There’s also a 1000-page script somewhere waiting to be made into something, a significant part of their relationship and it’s beginnings.
How Sam Larson Contacted Julie Nolke First: An Aspiring Film Director Meets an Aspiring Actress
As suspected, but one small bit surprising, Julie Nolke graduated with a BFA in acting from York University in Toronto in 2012. With her acting ambitions and love for food, she created her Feeling Peckish YouTube channel originally as a blog, now her eponymous channel, within the first year of her graduation. And yes, the two started it together, not just her. He would take her pictures and direct her videos, and she would be the host/writer, obviously.
And it’s one of those “made for each other” stories.
Photo Source: Julie Nolke, YouTube
And their story of meeting each other is that of a classic one. It was in the first month of her graduation that they met. But Sam had seen Julie in one of her final shows in the university while he was looking to cast for a feature film he’d just written in 100 pages. No one was willing to help, but he says he still has the script. He was still casting it though.
The two went on to Hilah Johnson‘s podcast, Hilah Cooking, in mid-2017 to discuss what their first impressions of each other were. On seeing her in that show, Sam thought she was “hot” and contacted her to set up a meeting. And upon meeting him, she was like, “This guy is really motivated.”
“There was definitely an attraction there,” she says. “So we started dating, not long after.”
How the Pair Associated with Tastemade, Full-Time
The transition from blogs to vlogs was originally the boyfriend’s idea so that they could practice their passion, one behind the camera and one in front of one. So yeah, it was to boost her confidence as well. “I have a weird, kind of, stigma or vulnerability about the acting world; it makes me very uncomfortable,” she continues. “It’s almost like I’ve put it in a pedestal ’cause it’s something that I wanted so badly that when we decided to make YouTube videos, it couldn’t be acting for me. In order to feel comfortable and confident, it had to be another part of my wheelhouse for something else I enjoy.”
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So yeah, in order to not turn her passion into something to stress about, food was the way. They made the first video in around 2014 and started taking it seriously a year later. The latter also led to signing as a “partner manager” from Tastemade, which was only in its inception back then.
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When it exploded, the company signed on her and her boyfriend directly, with some other Tastemakers as well. She eventually left the desk job she was working because the couple got $1000 per video. Nice money back then, as that was every week. On her then-named Feeling Peckish channel, she was posting a video every Thursday, a tradition she still follows.
We Can’t Stop Staring at Her Ring in Her Videos
Julie has such an attachment with her wedding ring (you don’t say you marriage vows if not for this) that she almost never takes it off in any of her videos. In her recent “I’m done with men” video too, she’s been wearing it, contrast to what the video kind of entails. And no, she doesn’t need to remove it at all.
Rest assured, it was a happy day for the husband-wife.
Photo Source: Julie Nolke, Instagram
She posted a photo of her celebration of a year as husband and wife in June 2020, and her “matching ring” was seen every time since then. She also credited the photographer in her memory post, who confirmed that they are indeed married, in the comments. And even for someone who joked about calling one’s partner their “best friend” being absurd, it was not surprising she called Sam her best friend in that post as well.
We used to see a lot of the husband in her past videos, but it seems he’s done appearing in front of the camera. He did appear in a lot of her deleted videos, but as defined, these are deleted, or rather set to private. There’s a strong aura of the desire for privacy coming from her after her recent burst to fame. But their story’s just too beautiful to not share.
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