For as long as I can remember, Justin Farmer has been in my life. Up until November of 2016, he was just a guy I grew up with and went to youth group with. I knew he had a good reputation, a servant's heart, and an incredible family. On Thanksgiving Day of 2016 Justin posted a snapchat of his mom dancing as they drove to family dinner at his grandparents in Slocomb. I consider this next moment a God wink-- I responded to him and complemented her awesome dance moves and wished his family a "Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you're doing well!". I didn't think much more about that message until a few days later when I was back at Harding grabbing a sonic limeade with Kathryn (maid of honor) and I noticed that we had a steady snap streak going (thanks snapchat!!). I casually mentioned "Kat, I know you hung out with LL lots this summer as youth intern but were you ever around her brother Justin?". In true Kathryn fashion, she squealed in excitement and wanted to know why I was asking. I explained the whole situation to her and she was as giddy as could be. I continued cautiously and didn't get my hopes up. Christmas break rolls around and we were still chatting (still on snapchat because he wouldn't text me). I got gutsy one day and said "so do I get to see you while I'm home on break?" and he sent back a looooong snap of what his plans were for our first date. So began the adventures...

Justin picked me up around 1:00 on December 21. I was all dolled up and excited for what was to come that night. I watched his big white truck come down the hill . He had on his red and grey columbia pullover (which I later found out he bought just for the date :)), jeans, and wallabies. SO HANDSOME. He came to the door to get me and say hi to my dad (who had the flu- poor guy) then off we went. First stop was to see a movie-- Collateral Beauty with Will Smith. I remember the movie was good but besides that I was too focused on giggling at how many times Justin spilt popcorn on himself. After the movie we wandered Target and then headed to Cracker Barrel for dinner. I swooned at him praying over dinner (simple but significant). After dinner we headed to church, where we got a few looks because we had never been seen together just us at church. Church ended and Justin wanted to do a craft which was staining his new wallabies (Nowadays I chuckle at some of his craft ideas but back then I was rolling with the punches to keep this fella mine). We went to walmart and bough coconut oil to stain his shoes to make them darker then headed back to Southwest. He showed me all the firetrucks there at the place that he called home. After were finished fancy-ing up his shoes (bless him he was so happy) we went for a loooong drive around auburn. We talked about everything-- both serious and silly, jammed out to music, and enjoyed the roads of the place that we have both called home for so long. That drive lasted until about 1AM when he dropped me off at home. Little did I know that Justin would become my home and we were about to start two years of long distance.

A lot of thinking and planning went into trying to come up with the perfect place, time and way to ask the girl of my dreams to marry me. She had been bugging me for gosh, I don’t know, like 2 years! Always asking me when it was going to happen or a timeline I could give her and I would always laugh, smile, and say it is coming. Let me tell you what, it bugged her so much and I loved it. Throughout the years of dating this fine lady, I kept things like receipts, pictures, brochures, maps, goodies, and just fun stuff to use on a later date that was to be determined. When I first started collecting this stuff it was early on in our relationship and I did not know where it was going to take us, but I knew it would be somewhere special. We did our entire relationship from January of 2017 till May of 2019 long distance and let me tell you, it was a blessing and a curse (Ashley, not the long distance. The long distance was actually a much-needed break). I am just kidding. We usually went around a month without seeing each other and that was hard, but she would send me goodies, sweet letters, pictures, and snacks that I would keep. We would do Face-time dates that would last a minimum of 2 hours (“Lies”-Ashley). Face-time was our saving grace Throughout this long distance relationship, from every face-time date to every time we saw each other in person, I didn’t know I was falling in love with the woman of my dreams. 1 year and 5 months later I decided it was time to start saving to pop “The Question.” I was still a Student Firefighter at the time so I took job with EAMC as an Advanced EMT on their ambulances. This job was solely to make more money to save up for a ring to put on that thang. It got super real when I was offered my dream job with the City of Auburn as a Career Firefighter. This major pay increase allowed everything to fall into place with money so that I could ask this girl whom was still crazy enough to still be around.

My mom and a family friend, Mrs.Gottesman, went with me to Atlanta to pick out Ashley’s ring. The day we went was a long, long day. We left at 0800 in the morning right after I had been up at work and running calls all night long, but even through the tiredness I was still super excited to go. We made the drive up there and got checked in. They had a gorgeous ring laid out with a beautiful diamond, halo, and eternity band with diamonds all the way around. It was exactly what I wanted and I knew that she would LOVE it. I got a wedding band to match the engagement ring and was stuck up there all day until they pieced the diamond and the engagement band together. I got to shop with 2 women all day and let me tell you, it was a BIG store. I was so happy that they both were willing to go with me and help. I wanted a perfect engagement story for the perfect girl, one that all her girlfriends would be more super jealous of. I was originally planning to do a walk where throughout the walk there were tables set-up with memories, picture, and items that I had kept throughout dating. It was going be perfect but really hard to set-up and the location would have to be secluded so that no one would mess with it while we were away. I thought and pondered on it and decided to compact it all into a scrapbook with all of our memories. I went and bought a binder, paper holders, glue, colored papers, and other items to be able to piece it together and the work started. I worked for a week on the memory book to get everything in order. The next step was to find the perfect spot. I had been asking around for different spots around the lake that would be nice. I went to a fire tower to look around in that area to see if there were any good spots and luckily I spotted a little piece that stuck out into the lake and wanted to go look at it. It had a trail to it so I went for a walk and finally made it down there. It was perfect with a bench that overlooked the lake.

The day it happened was so stressful for me. I woke up to a text from her mother about the weather forecast for the day. RAINING in the afternoon. I told her we were going to go earlier to shop and to Cheesecake Factory. We had planned on leaving at around 2. At 1:30 the rain starting sprinkling and the worry set in. I stalled for an hour and then at about that time the rain started coming down so HARD that I could barely see the road. We pulled over. We parked and I grabbed my book bag, She gave me a really weird look and I said let’s go. The walk from the parking lot to the fire tower was almost straight uphill. I was walking at a normal speed, but ole girl complained the whole walk up there saying, “why are you running” and “slow down” Finally, we made it to the top of the hill and were right near the fire tower. Oh, did I mention, it was raining on us pretty heavily. We then climbed the fire tower. We were completely soaked from head to toe by the time we got to the top. I then looked at her and she gave me this look of ‘are you seriously going to do it right here?!’ We then made the hike from the Fire Tower down the trail to the spot I had picked out. We jumped over mud puddles, she slipped on pine straw, and we crossed a very sketchy bridge that was very slippery. We finally made it to the spot. I laid down a blanket on the soaked bench and the ground for me to get down on one knee. I then got her to sit down and then gave her the memory book. She loved every page.. She got to the last page and I asked for her to stand up. I said, “This is the only part I haven’t rehearsed.” I got down on one knee and told her everything she means to me. The clouds parted when I asked her to marry me. She said yes and we sat and talk for a good long while about our future. I told her how stressed I had been about the weather but throughout the whole day, God had shown me signs that this was meant to be and he was watching out for the two of us.