The Love Story: Making Plans

Goodness, I keep saying I'm going to get better and more consistent on these posts and I just keep completely failing at it. They usually require a lot of work because I'm trying to find as much as I can to remember things: going through journals/agenda books/old emails/facebook...and then there's the pictures...so it takes a bit of time and while I'm appreciate after the fact, it doesn't lessen the semi "dread" of getting started on one.

But today, I'm back at it! Here we go!

This is a series about our love story that I've been carrying on for far too long. If you're new, check out all the previous posts here and bear with me as I attempt to make a sprint to the finish line aka the wedding day.
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Marriage was no longer a scary topic for me. I knew with certainty that I was dating the man I was going to marry. It was strange but peaceful and I was ecstatic. Never before had I dreamed of getting married right outside of college but now here I was dreaming it. My apartment with my girlfriends had quickly turned into a giggly fest, talking about weddings and guessing at the future. They were as certain as I that Kevin was the man for me to marry. Every person we talked to gave us a confident thumbs up. It was crazy but it was clear, Kevin was going to be my husband one day.


School went back into the normal swing of things. We pulled in day night from time to time but mostly Kevin was back into visiting me in studio or working around my crazy hours. It turned us against each other at times, but we learned to talk though things and healthily discuss arguments. We had our date nights, enjoyed snow days and usually chose to relax together above all else.

We attended Kevin's youth pastor's wedding and it only confirmed for both of us that marriage was in the plans for us. I nearly cried in that ceremony. I couldn't believe, and yet I fully believed that I would be up at an alter marrying Kevin in some fashion, at some point in time. We talked about their wedding and thought about what our wedding would look like. We dreamed a lot. We dreamed about when we would get married. When he would propose. When we should even look at rings. If we should look at rings. The list went on.

Thankfully, the spring semester went by so fast and it was Spring Break before we even knew it. We'd planned back at Christmas to come to Florida and see my family. For the first time my sisters were going to meet him, and for the first time he was about to spend a lot of time, in close quarters, with my family. I was excited and completely anxious. I knew the Lord wouldn't give us such a clarity about marriage and then he dismiss my family after this trip but part of me still feared it. My family was a great part of why my relationship with M dismantled as it did. I worried it would all be too much for Kevin too.

We arrived in Florida to warm weather and beautiful skies, a nice break from the cold and gray of Oklahoma. My mom had many days planned and my sisters were very much themselves around Kevin. My heart was finally at ease. We played, we went to the beach, we sang in the car...it was so fun. At night I asked him how he was doing, and he always said great. My family was wonderful and fun for him...there were no big concerns.

My mom already knew about us talking marriage so we sat one day and started talking wedding dates. We looked at my sister's graduation date and considered locations and eventually settled on June 1st after graduation. We picked a wedding date before a proposal had even been made. It all felt right for us though. We were excited and my mom was giddy. We started a google document noting ideas for the weddings, dates, things to remember etc.

Spring break ended all too quickly but the trip settled so much in my heart. Kevin liked my family and my family liked Kevin. We talked about a wedding on very real terms and we had a blast just hanging out together without the stress of school for week. Marrying this man became more real with every day, and yet I still didn't have a ring on my finger to really share it with the world...