And So It Begins!

We’re so glad you’re apart of our big day! We are looking forward to seeing everyone there!

We met where all great love stories start, the 2nd floor of the Falcon Center at Fairmont State. I (Colby) walked up to the second floor with a friend and we saw mutual friends and unknown to me at the time, my future wife, sitting at a table. We stopped to talk and after a few minutes I bent down to tie my shoe and after standing back up the only two left are me and Grace! So, I then proceeded to say, “ It looks like it’s just us.” We continued to talk until I was late for class, but I think it was worth it. Little did Grace know at the time, however, that I had been praying for weeks that if it were God’s will to give me an opportunity to talk to her... the rest is history.

Like Colby said we met where all great love stories start, the 2nd floor of the Falcon Center at Fairmont State. However, my story begins a year before... Katie and Glenna had been trying to get me to talk to a guy... any Christian guy since I began college. However, I was focused on my relationship with the Lord and school. This was very true, but to be honest it was also an excuse to not have to talk to anyone. So, when Katie talked about this great guy (Colby) that helped her now-husband with fixing his car, I just shrugged it off. I noticed him at chi-alpha and he seemed super great. I noticed right away his love for the Lord, his love for people, and his goofiness. However, I still didn't talk to him. Fast forward to a year later and I started noticing him more, yet didn't want to be the one to make the first move. (Call me old fashioned). Colby's story tells the rest of how we met.

My original plan for proposing involved a stuffed animal, a name tag, and the element of surprise. Instead, what happened involved multiple pumpkins, paint, and stalling. I couldn’t wait any longer to pop the question. Ricky (The Best Man) along with his wife, Isaac (Guy with great triceps), and his girlfriend decided to go to a pumpkin patch and invited Grace and I along with them. That’s when the wheels started turning for me to ask. So, let's fast forward to the day we are going to the pumpkin patch. Ricky and his fiancé came up with the idea to ask Grace with pumpkins, so they called me to see if I wanted to do it. Naturally, I responded in the most Colby way possible, “Sounds cool.” This happened about 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave, so Ricky is frantically trying to get everyone going (except Grace and I of course) together to leave and get everything they needed to accomplish the goal. So, now it’s on me to stall Grace for as long as I can, in order to allow Ricky and the rest of the crew to get the paint, paint the pumpkins, scour the whole farm to look for the best spot to set the pumpkins and make sure Grace doesn’t see or suspect anything when she arrives. I successfully distracted Grace and gave everyone time to get everything in place. We arrived at 4:20 and the plan was to walk around the farm, maybe take a hayride, and capture some pictures. But to continue with the theme of rushing almost none of that plan happened, because the farm closed at 5. So instead, I grabbed what I thought was a squash snapped a picture with Grace, admired some pigs, and proposed. So that’s the story of why I proposed with pumpkins instead of a stuffed animal.

Let me just start out by saying Colby is very thoughtful and kind, just not so sneaky. The morning of the day before he proposed I had no idea that it was coming. That evening, however, things started getting weird. Colby told me what color he was wearing the next day and that I should paint my nails so "we can match and take pictures." I am an overthinker, so I started wondering why he was so concerned about pictures? Like Colby said there was stalling and us getting there less than an hour before they closed. Like Colby said, we got there, took pictures, walked around, and looked at pigs. We were there maybe 10 or 15 minutes and all of a sudden all the guys said "we have to go to the bathroom" (that's what they say girls do), I was very confused at that point. The girls and I took more pictures and walked around. The girls led me up to where the guys had set up pumpkins that spelled out "Grace Will You Marry Me" in front of a gazebo. Standing behind the pumpkins was the man of my dreams asking me to be his forever. Me being awkward and trying not to cry said "YES" before he could even ask. (The pumpkins asked for him). His response was "Would you let me get on one knee and ask you first?" He asked and I said YES again...his response was "Well, are you going to take the ring?"... My response was "Well, you have to put it on me"... then his response again was "Well, I've never done this before." He put the ring on me, and I said, "Is that why you've been being so weird." I'm so thankful for Colby and who he is as a person. Saying YES to him was one of the easiest decisions I've ever made.

As crazy as it may sound, I knew Grace was the one after two weeks. I can't give a long elaborate story as to why and when I knew. All I can say is what I felt both then and now. After Grace started having her migraines all I could think about was making sure she was ok and taken care of. I wanted to be by her side every second that I possibly could. I knew she was in pain and I wanted to take that pain away, but I knew I couldn't and it killed me that I couldn't. I'd never been in love before so I didn't know what it looked like or felt like. Towards the end of that second week though, after all the visits to the ER she was laying on her couch asleep and I remember looking over and thinking to myself, "I think I love this girl... I'm going to marry her." And here we are now 5 months away from our wedding date when I wrote this. I didn't know what being in love felt like then, but I sure do now because I fall in love with her more and more everyday and am blessed enough to get to do that for the rest of our lives. That day was the last day that I "Thought" I was in love.

Colby and I talked for several months as friends before deciding to date. Neither one of us had ever really dated anyone before, so this was all new to us. Literally, a week into us dating, I got very sick. I have had chronic migraines with neurological symptoms on and off for years, but never anything like this. Within two weeks, I was in the ER three different times and hospitalized once with continuous migraine and stroke-like symptoms. Colby was there through it all, whether in the hospital or helping me get through midterms or staying with me during the day and switching off with my mom so I wouldn't be alone. He really didn't leave my side. He even met my parents for the first time in the ER. This went on for a couple of months with us not knowing when or if I would get better. However, Colby was patient and supportive through it all. I knew then that God had given me all that I'd been waiting and praying for and so much more. I knew at that moment he was the ONE! We were both praying separately through this to make sure it was God's will. I can't wait to spend forever serving God and experiencing all He has for us together!