We’ve added a few photo galleries to the Photos page. More will be added soon!
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Photos Are Up!
Posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 by Andrew
365 Days
Posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 by Andrew
Today is the 365th day that Julie and I have been dating. On this day a year ago, I met Julie on a rainy evening at a Johnny Carino’s in Lexington. As you know from reading about our story, we communicated on Facebook for a few weeks prior to our first date. Meeting in Julie is person affirmed in me that I couldn’t let this girl get away.
We had a great dinner, and great conversation that carried over to a nearby Starbucks for two more hours. All-in-all, our five-hour first date was a success. In the parking lot, as we parted ways that evening, we decided that “we should do this again sometime.” It was a good decision.
Today, we’ve celebrated by recreating the first date. We had lunch at the same Johnny Carino’s. We’re also wearing the same clothes that we wore on the first date. Silly, we know. Julie actually ordered the same meal as last year, but I ventured out and ordered the very good three meat Italian pizza. Later, we stopped for coffee, but this time, we went to Julie’s favorite local coffee shop – Coffee Times.
In between, we’ve registered for wedding gifts. We’ll have our registry information up soon, but we still need to go to one more store on Tuesday evening. I’m not sure either of us thought we’d be preparing for a wedding one year ago, but we’re both very happy and blessed to be doing so.
What a year it’s been!
Engagement Pictures Video
Posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 by Andrew
This past Saturday, Julie and I ventured out to Cove Spring Park for our engagement pictures. We asked Kari McGrath to do our photos because she is amazing! We’ve seen a few sneak peeks of our photos and we’re very excited about how they turned out. We can’t wait to see the rest of them!
I took the Flip along and got some video of the day.
Pre-Marital Ponderings
Posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 by Julie
As of today, we are getting married in 79 days. 79 days!!! We began our pre-marital counseling with Andrew’s pastor, Rick, so we will be getting some amazing guidance for sure. However, we know that there are a lot of married people out there who have a lot of great marriage advice. We have been asking around, and here is some of the marriage snippets that have come our way:
“Elope.” -from a myriad of married people actually
“Do a quick engagement.” -several more (who didn’t suggest eloping)
“Make sure to have a date night.” -Steve Birch (via Miranda Birch)
My favorite bit came from the ever-wise 6th grader, Katie Damron, a girl in my Jr. High small group. She has been giving us something creative and hand-made each week since the engagement. The most recent card said, “Let God lead you and Andrew as you grow together. Remember that being happy together is not having everything in your lives be perfect. It is (about) your lives following God and being yourselves.” Love it. Love her.
So, we want to open this question up to our site guests. If you could offer any words of wedding advice or encouragement, what would it be?
We’re Engaged!
Posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 by Andrew
Today was an awesome day! We traveled to Georgetown for a stop at Evan’s Orchard. Julie is an apple connaisseur and Evan’s is one of her favorite places. On top of this, it was a beautiful morning and Razor Russets – Julie’s favorite type of apple – are in season.
First, a little background information.
I had planned on popping the question at some point today, but I didn’t know when or where. As we left Julie’s place, I put the ring box in my pocket and then slipped it under the driver’s seat when we got in her car. Once we arrived at Evan’s and started walking around, I knew this would be a great place to ask Julie to marry me.
Julie quickly filled two small bags. She asked me to go back to the shop to get a bigger bag. I realized this would be my best opportunity to get the ring, but since Julie drove to Evan’s, it meant I’d have to ask her for the car keys. I knew this might make her suspect something, and it didn’t help that her roommate predicted I’d pop the question today.
I ran back to the shop to get a bigger bag, and then went to the truck to get the ring. Once I got back to Julie, she asked me to pick an apple for her. I said, “what if I picked you a diamond ring instead?” I took the ring out of my pocket and got down on one knee. At this point, Julie is jumping up and down saying, “I knew it! I knew it!” I opened the ring box and asked, “will you marry me?” I was lost in the moment and didn’t realize why Julie kept saying, “it’s upside-down, it’s upside-down.” It then hit me that I’d opened the ring box upside-down.
After I finally turned the ring box right-side-up, Julie said yes and bent down to give me a hug and kiss. It was an amazing moment!
We spent the rest of our visit to Evan’s taking pictures, enjoying the moment and filling our bags with apples. The staff at Evan’s was very excited to hear the news, and we are supposedly the first couple to get engaged there. They gave Julie a free t-shirt and took our picture. It will always be a special place.
We can’t wait to start planning our wedding and spending the rest of our lives together. God has truly blessed us both.