We're Married!! Come Celebrate With Us

Back in 2012 we met out of sheer coincidence by taking a summer speech class together at Parkland College. We hit it off in class and became friends but were too preoccupied with other relationships in our lives to realize at the time what was right in front of us. Eventually we drifted apart, Stephen going to ISU and me going to U of I and traveling the world. We stopped talking and probably figured we'd never see each other again. Fast forward to 2018 when a mutual friend brought us back together. What started out as simple drinking buddies began to blossom into friendship until one long night spent talking for hours made each of us realize in our time that there was something else there. Spring of 2019 and we couldn't hide our feelings anymore. We made it official and began sharing our love of cars with one another. I shared my love of traveling and took Stephen on his first airplane ride and first ocean adventure. We moved in together into our little house after deciding to get a puppy together realizing we were pretty much committing our lives to each other at that point. We enjoyed building our home with 2 dogs and a cat through a pandemic and realized we could tolerate living with each other pretty well. Through ups and downs, job changes, pet loss, new pet additions, surgeries, and everything in between we always pushed each other to be better people and supported each other no matter what. It only took 8 years for us to figure it out and 11 years to make us Mr. and Mrs. but we're finally living our happily ever after.

Nothing in our relationship has ever been conventional and that goes for our engagement too. Stephen is awful at keeping secrets from me and was looking at rings online in front of me, saying he had "super secret" errands to run, and bringing me stuffed animals that clearly sit in ring shops. I obviously connected the dots and knew he was going to propose I just didn't know when, where, or what the ring was going to be. Some things remained a mystery through the process but after several bumps in the road with the ring not being ready on time I became a little more aware of the timeline. We went on a family vacation to Disney World in February of 2022 and I could tell Stephen was stressed. I of course was hoping what every girl would have been hoping for which was a Disney proposal. It would have happened too, had the ring shown up on time, but like everything in our relationship things didn't go quite as planned. After vacation he finally got the ring but it wasn't what he envisioned. After several more weeks of waiting we decided to have a Disney re-do day where we could have the proposal like how it was supposed to go. We decided our 3 year anniversary would be perfect and decided either the ring was going to be ready and correct or he'd get a different ring. We were ready to be official and to announce to the world our engagement. Luckily the ring got done on time and was exactly as Stephen pictured. We hopped on an early morning flight to Orlando and departed for Disney fun. We decided that a relaxing day with good food, pool side alcoholic tropical beverages, and a grand pedicure treatment would be the perfect start to our short trip. The following day we were up and ready to get into one of my favorite parks, Animal Kingdom, as the rope dropped. I knew this was the day Stephen was going to propose and I tried to contain my excitement and nerves. We enjoyed so many rides early on in the day and got to do all of my favorite things at least once. We rode the safari and saw amazing animals, got our thrills from riding the everest roller coaster, flew on a banshee in the land of Pandora, and cooled off from the hot Florida sun on the river rapids. As if the day wasn't already perfect we made our way to the focal point of the park, the tree of life. We had a private photographer session where the photographer had me turn toward the tree and turn back to see Stephen on one knee. I knew that moment was coming but still couldn't contain my tears of happiness. We had a great engagement photo session and enjoyed the rest of our day in the park with the beautiful custom ring finally on my finger. Even with all the bumps in the road along the way the only thing I'd change is having 2 days in the Disney parks instead of just one and seemingly wasting a day trying to find shopping and other things to do but that's besides the point. It was truly what any girl could have dreamed of, a Disney proposal in a beautiful place, on a perfect day, with my soulmate. I'm truly spoiled to be treated like a princess and grateful for how much Stephen goes out of his way for me to try to enjoy all the magical Disney things I do. I will always remember these times and look forward to so many more magical memories to be had together. It may not have been conventional to have planned the engagement trip together or for me to even know any details at all but that's us, and our non conventional relationship and it ended up being perfect anyway.