100 Days To Go!

Today marks 100 days until we get married! Yea!

Last night we took our engagement pictures at Nathanael Greene Park. Barron wasn't super excited about starring in a photo shoot, but in the end I think he had fun. Our photographer, Cary Bates, was easy to work with and we're looking forward to seeing how the pics came out. Maybe she'll let me post some. I thought it would be fun to carve a pumpkin to use in our pics, so Monday night I gave it a whirl. I was fairly pleased with the outcome. Thought you'd like to see too!

Things in the wedding planning world are going well. Our biggest drama so far is which cheesecake to get. We're still sampling...rough job. :) We're waiting to see what God would have us do there -- He's been so thorough with all of the details so far!

Messes of Dresses

The bridesmaid dress decision has finally been made and dresses have been ordered! Wahoo! No thanks to Verizon for making it practically impossible to talk to Amy in Nebraska.

The craziest part of it all was not making the decision, however, but getting them ordered. I called David's Bridal to ask the best method of ordering, because Amy needs hers in Nebraska. The gal assured me that I could order over the phone at any time and that they would take the addresses of each girl and mail the dresses to them individually. (Obviously that wouldn't work with Courtney.) Great. But Barron and I are heading to church and don't have much time, so I decide to just run by the store after church.

I get there and the gal starts my order and then looks at me and says "Did I just call you?"

"Um, I don't believe so, no."

"Huh...then I must have been getting ready to."

(weird)

So I proceed to order the dresses. I explain what I need to do as far as shipping a dress to Nebraska and she has no idea how they do that. (What!?) She asks another gal. No idea. The manager comes out and says "they are all shipped here, then you pay us to ship it to her." Oh brother. Ok, whatever.

Then the gal helping me makes me nervous asking if they said they could get them in time. "Um, you didn't indicate that you couldn't." But of course I have to pay for them before they give an availability date. Thankfully it's December 3rd. Whew--that's a month before my dress is supposed to be in. Sweet.

But it's not over yet. She then gives me that weird look again and says "I think your dress is here."

(Say what!?)

Sure enough, it is! Crazy!

Then begins the adventure of trying to explain to her that my fiance is in the car so I need to either have it wrapped up really well or come back and get it. She agrees to wrap it and brings it out in a clear plastic bag. Huh? So again, I explain that I need it wrapped in something else and she says "no problem!" As she's putting it in another bag she looks at me and says "oh, so you're fiance is in the car?"

(Hello, where have you been?)

So anyway, thank you God for getting my dress here then, because boy that would have made me nervous. And thanks for keeping me from having to go there any more times than I have to!

The Long and Short of It.

Tonight Tammi and I went shopping for bridesmaid dresses and oh what an adventure it was. We started the evening off with Sushi To-Go-Go from Ocean Zen. Yum! Then it was off to the mall in search of a non-bridesmaid-y dress. Unfortunately there were none to be found that fit what we were looking for. Boo.

Off to David's Bridal.

We had a couple of short dresses in mind that we'd seen online that we were anxious to try--and they had our sizes! Walking out of the dressing room, you would have thought we had two different dresses on. Tammi is probably 10-12 inches shorter than me. So what was supposed to be knee-length was tea-length on her and above-the-knee on me (which makes me look like a doll). No good. So we went back out there (in the dresses) in hopes to find something different. Ten dresses later, we are loving the long dress. What! I had gone over it a lot in my mind and was sure I wanted short, but after seeing them and knowing the timing of the wedding, long is the way to go. Here is Tammi in our two pics (they will be black). And hey, with our great photography skills, you can see the back of both of them as well! (That was pure luck.)

No pics of me in dresses--both of mine were too big, so rather than make me look small, I looked more like I was wearing a sack...but in the right size, they'd be nice (the strapless one is my personal fav). We we'll see what the gals decide, but we have to decide soon!

The Ring

Saturday after Barron proposed we went ring shopping. Yea! We had a lunch scheduled east of Springfield, so we prayed the Lord would show us which ring to buy and headed to Justice Jewelers. It was overwhelming. I had only one idea of a style I like online, but knew I may not like it on my finger. Sure enough, that style did nothing for me once I had it on, but they had plenty to check out, so we kept looking. There was a three-stone oval cut that we both liked, but we weren't quite sure. We looked around some more and Barron said that when he saw the three-stone ring, his first thought was it represented us--he and I on each side, the Lord in the middle. Wow, how true.

We decided to keep looking around at other stores that afternoon since we're not very knowledgeable about diamonds. We did find one other ring that was very impressive, so we headed back to Justice to look at #1 again. On the drive there I told Barron "I wish God would tell us which one to pick!"

We headed straight for ring #1 and asked to try it on again. The question that we're using to guide our whole wedding is "does it glorify God?" Looking at candidate #1 and the meaning that we both saw in it, it was clear that THAT ring would glorify God the most. Every time someone asks about the ring, I have the opportunity to tell them about the journey and what it means to Barron and I. Yea!

This was one of the best days ever--I will forever have precious memories of how God brought this ring into our lives, and what it represents for both of us, even though it's on my hand. Thanks Barron for being obedient to the Lord's instruction to wait and shop together. It was wonderful!

Engaged!

The adventure began October 2, 2008. Or was it when I was born 26 years (to the day) before? Whichever it was, birthday #26 will be remembered forever.

We went out to Ocean Zen for my birthday, the same place we went for our first date and one of our favorite places in town. Of course I figured it was just because it was my birthday. I will admit that I wondered if he would propose that night, but I had decided that he wouldn't because he'd know I'd be wondering. And that would have been the end of it, although that afternoon when I was talking to my dad he paused and said "hmmm, Barron's calling me." That made me curious, but I didn't want to ruin my birthday with such ridiculous expectations, so I prayed for the Lord to take the thought away and just enjoy dinner--and thankfully, He did.

We go back to my house after dinner and after a bathroom break and a couple Happy Birthday voice mails Barron asks me if I'm ready for my gift. Well, yeah! He stands me in the middle of the living room and tells me my gift is already in the house. Huh? Some of you may remember our dancing birthday cake--it was still in my house, so I figured he was going to go get that. Barron takes a lap around the house and comes back in with his hands behind his back. (Yes, I'm now curious, but confused, so still not expecting a proposal.) He stands in front of me and proceeds to tell me that he loves me and that he has tried to show me that over the months (I'm nodding) and he drops to one knee while saying he wants to spend the rest of his life with me (which I don't hear because I'm in shock) and asks me to marry him! Of course I say yes!

And then it occurs to me that I haven't seen a ring yet. Ah, but he knows I'm thinking that and explains that he doesn't have a ring because he wanted us to go pick it out together, not because he thought he was incapable, but because he had prayed about it and felt the Lord tell him we should go together because it's a symbol of our commitment. I loved that!


Perhaps the best part of all was Barron just holding me and praying for us and what the Lord wants to do in our future together. I am so blessed to have a man devoted to the Lord.