SUYL - Engagement Story

The first dance - David Allen Coe's "You Don't have to Call Me Darling" - I never said we were normal!!

Our BFF in the background - I always joked that Jayson's long hair and Tina's dreads made me look like the outsider :)

The chapel - the rain made us have an indoor wedding!

And this is pretty much the definition of "Us" - Jayson is kind and gentle and I am more of a "smack you in the face" kinda girl :)

I totally meant to do this a couple weeks ago . . .one of the blogs I follow has "Show Us Your Life" Fridays. Basically with a topic and you do your thing.

Anyway . . . I missed the week about engagement stories . . . and since I plan on putting this blog into book form for my kids (you know, so they can see how totally awesome they were when I have long since lost my mind to remember the stories of their childhood) . . . I thought it would be good to include our engagement story.

hahaha - that's kind of a joke, because we weren't engaged!! But the story of our "wedding decision" as we refer to it is this:

On a Thursday night we went out to dinner - because that was our hobby pre kids and true adult life - we ate out and drank out darn near every night. So at the table Jayson mentions that he happens to have the following weekend off - not a big deal for me in the 8-5 desk job - but a huge deal for him in the restaurant business. So we look at each other and start posing ideas for what we should do. Someone mentions that it's Valentine's Day on that Friday and at the same time we look at each other and say "We should get married" . . . and that was that. I bought a dress, he dry cleaned his suit and bought a new tie, we bought rings, and I happened to be going to a wedding show with a friend that actually had an engagement and wedding, and I booked the chapel (well, it was supposed to be outside on the river, but we ended up having to use the chapel).

And that story led to a 10 minute ceremony in the mountains and a crazy night of fun with our friends and some family . . . and here we are 7 1/2 years later.

There is no part of me that regrets that we eloped. I would say that with every wedding I have attended since then, I have simply become reaffirmed in my decision to do what we did. The only thing that we would have changed might have been to tell our family AFTER the fact, rather than before. I will leave it at that.

And that engagement story also lead to the awesomeness that are the above pictures :) I always said I wanted wedding pics that weren't timeless - something I would look back on and laugh . . . I meant 20 years down the road, not 7 . . . but I love them! How could you not?! Look at Jayson's hair!!!!