Started my wedding registry today, which made me feel the distance between us even more.... Missing you.

    

   

Yes, I will be planning my kitchen colors around my KitchenAid mixer. ;)

2 weddings, 2 months apart

My older sister and I are both getting married two months apart.  At first we thought we would have a problem making our weddings different from each other, but through this process, we have realized our tastes are opposite (which works out :). I would not want to do this whole wedding thing alone! Thank you Em, for always being there and for being my maid of honor even in the throws of your own wedding planning. <3

Wish we had pictures of our cake-testing because that has been my favorite part of wedding planing together so far! Second favorite? DRESS SHOPPING.

First day of dress shopping!

Yay, both engaged! <3

So excited to be Maid of Honor in her wedding!

Bridesmaid dress shopping for my wedding this time!

Ending a girly night with some chocolate. Perfect.

Too much chocolate, laughter, and love makes the belly sick and the heart happy.

What Love Is...

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Cor 13 (ESV)

Our Song: Jason Mraz - I Won't Give Up.

Our Story.

How love took wing....

Rob and I met at a mutual friend's house (Johnny Caputo) over Christmas break of our first year of college (December 2009, for those of you who are like me and crave sweet-tasting details).  After discovering we went to the same college, we began "hanging out" once we were back to school.  Nothing more than friendship existed for awhile, until about March when we both took cuts and came home to PA together. I then realized I had fallen in love with my best friend....

We waited until the end of our freshman year to become "official".  So May 22, 2010 marks the day Rob asked me to be his girlfriend while chilling in one of my favorite high school spots, a gazebo nestled within a pretty local park. 
 

For those of you who really know us, this is the VERY condensed version of our story.

 

Love Birds <3

Indiana. July 26, 2012.

Rob and I traveled to Indiana with his family to visit his grandparents who own a beautiful property on a lake. The five days were spent water skiing (I got up!), tubing, fishing, swimming, night boat rides, long walks, fattening foods, slightly-competitive rounds of Hand and Foot, watching summer Olympics and chilling on the dock catching some rays. 

 

Day 2. Rob and I were sitting on the porch swing and he asked me if I wanted to go on an evening canoe ride with him. He said he had brought a nice shirt and was going to shower before leaving. This made me feel guilty and pressured I was still in my gym shorts, smelled like lake and had little intention of changing any time soon. But, I could tell he wanted to make this ride special, especially since we had little alone time since arriving in Indiana, so I showered and decided to make myself look half-decent. 

Rob's grandpa scolded him for bringing his ipone on the canoe and warned us to "not get silly" together on the canoe! Ha. This made me laugh; he was beginning to know us quite well. Grandma reminded us to wear life jackets and we almost escaped without having to put them on, but she spied on us from the deck and yelled at us to "put your jackets on!" <---just a few fun memories. 

Rob and I rowed towards the middle, not a boat in site. I moved to the middle of the canoe so we could take pictures and so I could face him. While looking at the pictures, I remember him saying "I love nights like this with you", I'm pretty sure I ignored that comment, as I never know how to respond to such sweet comments. I kept scrolling through the pictures and looked up, only to see him on ONE KNEE IN THE CANOE, holding a SPARKLY RING and saying, "WILL YOU MARRY ME?" 

....after a delay due to being totally shocked and completely caught of guard, I said "YES." 

 










Good he had the iphone, for distractions and for catching this surreal moment. Grandpa wasn't aware of what was coming ;) Lose the ring or the iphone in the water? Hmmm. Rob, you were so smart to get ring insurance. Thankfully, we made it to shore without tipping the boat or losing anything valuable.

Imagine calm waters, a nearby willow tree, a sinking sun, a diamond ring, best friends, a keen awareness of love in the air... and a moment when you are the only two people on earth who know what just happened.... beautiful.

 Daisies I found on the dock when we got back. Such happy little flowers.

 







              
                               And now, we are getting ready to be married!

Our (coming) Wedding Day! <3

And so our story, the story of two love birds, is just beginning... I can't wait to say "we do" on JUNE 1, 2013.