We’re Getting Married!!!

Our paths first crossed when I started attending Life Church in November of 2016. Justin’s good looks & charm greeted us every Sunday, and he always remembered where we preferred to sit. Justin will surely tell you that I “stalked” him from the beginning, but I like to think that God just communicated to me a little bit earlier that we were meant to be together. I served on the seating team just so I would have an excuse to talk to him more! I may have even told my family that I was going to marry him someday after only knowing him for a few months. Needless to say they thought I was crazy.. but here we are! I don’t think I was alone in those early feelings either! Justin would always make his way up next to me during worship, and if I was serving in nursery he’d spend most of that service in there with me. Finally, on June 11, 2018, I got him to come on a “date” with me to Bark in the Park at Dow Diamond. We continued texting & snap chatting over the next few weeks, and had some more “dates” including babysitting the Procuro kids, Lifer Movie Night, and Gia’s birthday party. And on July 13, 2018, the last night of Best Week Ever, we finally had our first night alone & shared our first kiss. 🥰 We continued talking & hanging out, and eventually made our relationship title “official” on August 5th, 2018.

It’s definitely funny looking back on this day and noticing “the signs” that I completely overlooked! That morning I woke up around 8am. Justin was already awake, and I remember him saying something along the lines of “Come on! Time to get up! It’s going to be a great Sunday!” While getting ready Justin started playing Train’s “Marry Me”. I love songs about getting married, so I told him to play the one by Bruno Mars next! As we were driving to church, we somehow started discussing engagement rings. Justin works long hours, and when he is not working he is either with me or I know where he’s at. So I told him it’s fine if I know that he’s going to pick out an engagement ring, it doesn’t mean that I’ll know when he’s proposing to me. He then promised he would go looking at engagement rings the next Saturday, and we shook on it. Justin was serving in our kid's ministry first service and I was sitting with my family. I remember leaning over to my sister and telling her the good news that Justin was finally going to look at engagement rings the next weekend. That sneaky girl replied, “What?! He hasn’t even talked to me about it yet!” Toward the end of the message I noticed our friend Ian with a video camera, but I assumed he was just getting footage of our speaker Megan for the church. Then, as Megan was wrapping up, she said “And now we have an announcement from a special guest.” There was a little pause.. and then out walks Justin! I immediately took a deep breath, looked at my sister and she was recording him – and you can hear me in my sister’s recording saying, “Stop it!” Then, he looked at me and asked me to come up on stage with him. I was shaking! He totally surprised me! When I got up on stage he said to me, “Don’t faint!” I was facing our friend Kecia and she told me afterwards that I was saying “YES” before he even asked, “Will you please marry me?” The ring is perfect. His proposal was awesome. It is definitely a day I won't ever forget.