|| wedding ||

On the very first day of the year-long program that Christian and I are taking, I realized that I could grab a spot with some old friends-- or try to make new ones. I went with the latter and wound up sitting behind Christian. Once we got to talking, it didn't take long before it came out that we are both Catholic, work in the same building, and have outlandish senses of humor. Soon after, we got coffee and went to Mass together (a killer combination that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to get to know someone further) I was doing a dating fast at the time, however, so I wasn't quite ready to go out the first time he asked. But once we got there, our first date included explosive flowers, breaking into a tomb in the hunt for ancient treasure, and a personalized playlist. That, plus non-stop laughter and deep religious conversations, meant I was pretty sold by the end of the night.

This story begins with a naive desire to meet new people, a practice that I usually oppose. I was at a work conference sitting with friends when this desire came over me, so I foolishly turned my seat around to speak to whoever was behind me. The woman sitting there was gorgeous. Her blue hair and blue eyes were supplemented with blue-green beetle earrings. I’ll confess that I don’t remember what she was wearing, but it was definitely a style that I have since come to know and love as “Punk Pilgrim.” I was immediately impressed. I was much more impressed, however, by her mind. As we talked, I realized that I could not have found a better conversationalist in the whole auditorium. She was a Catholic (!), had a Masters in medieval literature (!!) with a focus in philosophy of religion (!!!). She had an incredible sense of humor, finely tuned to the little absurdities of life. By the end of the day, I was pretty sure that we were going to be in love. As it turns out, I was right.

We had been talking about getting engaged sometime at the beginning of 2019, but Christian kept saying February. My suspicions were aroused about January 18th, however, because we had a full day planned in D.C. We were going to have brunch, go to the March for Life, then visit the botanical gardens. To top it off, a week before Christian asked if I'd like to finish off the day with a date to Black Salt- so I was going to be dressed up. That morning, I was looking pretty cute just in case. But when Christian got to my house, he was wearing blue jeans (and looking great, but a lot more casual than usual) so suddenly I wasn't quite as certain. During brunch, I was trying to sneakily get information about his proposal plans, and he played it -so- cool that I figured it couldn't be today. I told him I just wanted to make sure I was going to look good whenever he did it, and he promised I would. Then as a final ploy, I told him I was going to get changed into something more casual after brunch, and he rolled with that as well. I did get changed and we went to the March. Afterward, we visited the botanical gardens which, unbeknownst to me, Christian had scouted out the day before. He pretended like he didn't know where it was though, so we got "lost" for a bit. Finally we got there, walked around, and wound up in the main atrium on a bridge surrounded by plants and trees. All of the sudden, he was on one knee, holding the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen. Allegedly he gave a speech at this point, but I was so excited I didn't catch a word of it. When I said yes, the entire room erupted into applause. Dinner was incredible with seafood, cocktails, dessert, and champagne. Afterward, we weren't quite ready for the night to end so we went back to my house and watched a zombie movie. I can't imagine a more perfect way to start our engagement and I'll always remember every bit of it (except for poor Christian's speech)