We're Getting Married!

Marshall and I's story goes way back. Our dads met in elementary school and have been friends ever since! Somehow, even though we know we met a few times as kids, neither of us remember ever meeting. So, our story begins in March 2020, with Marshall's family making a trip to my house to fish.. this is the "first time" we were introduced to each other. A few weeks later, a small mistake of getting the lawn mower and truck stuck in the mud in our yard had Marshall and his Dad back over late one night. Ironically, this was the night Marshall asked me for my number, even though I was beyond embarrassed they had to help... since I was the one who got the lawn mower stuck in the first place. I gave him my number and another couple weeks went by. Marshall began to work at the restaurant with me and my family. We were becoming friends and Marshall kept trying to convince me to start going out with him. I was unsure, and only trying to see what God wanted me to do with my life, so I respectfully declined and we continued to be friends. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, he still wanted me to go out with him, and we had gotten to know each other a lot more and had become very good friends. Long story short, on December 7th, 2020, I finally said yes and we began dating. It has been quite the journey of learning more about each other. We have one through a lot together. We've handled our fair share and we have been strong enough to lean on each other for comfort. I was hesitant to start my first relationship, as exciting as it sounded. Now look where we are!

We had traveled to Branson, Missouri for our senior trip with both of our families. My family and Marshall drove up on Wednesday, and his family joined us Thursday evening. We wanted to go out just the two of us and dress up nice on Thursday night. However he wanted me to wait to dress up in my nice dress for the proposal on Friday night. So, knowing I wouldn't wear my dress if he wasn't fully dressed up, he made up the excuse that he packed the wrong button-up shirt that didn't fit him right. We still made the date, and I changed into jeans and a nicer shirt. Friday we spent the day at Silver Dollar City, and all day I was getting weird hints making me think... "no way he's proposing tonight.. right?" Marshall tried to get me to dress up for the dinner with our families Friday night, but I wasn't going to look stupid in a nice fancy dress while everyone else was in shorts and t-shirts! So he texted our parents and told them to have everyone dress up, and told me to dress up nice cause we were all going to go out for a nice dinner together on the Branson landing. Once we got to dinner, our wonderful photographer texted him to hold off and wait a little longer for the lighting to be better. Marshall's dad brought the ring box in with him in his sock! haha... We ordered our food and drinks, and right as we got our food Marshall took maybe a few bites of his dinner and left the table. His excuse was "I have to go get dads blood pressure medicine from the truck". After 10 minutes or so passes, our photographer still wanted to wait just a little longer, and I texted Marshall asking him if everything was okay. Marshall's response was "yeah, dad parked really far away." Yet another 5-10 minutes passed and I checked on him again because he still had not returned to the dinner table. He told me he couldn't find the medicine because it wasn't where his dad told him he left it. By this time, everyone was done eating, so we grabbed to go boxes and asked the waitress for our checks. We paid the tab and headed out of the restaurant. We walked down a ways, and his parents started to walk the wrong direction. My dad was like "No wait I think it's this way.." .. So we continued walking. At this point I had a pretty good feeling of what was going on. We walked into a parking lot just off the water on the Landing. I caught a glimpse of him between the cars, and he was standing on a doc. It was such a sweet moment I will never forget. There he was standing in the middle of candles shaped like a heart, with lights strung up, waiting for me to walk over. He knelt down, and I said Yes! I later found out that they had postponed when they wanted to have my family bring me down there because of the lighting. It was cloudy so the sunset part wasn't going to work out, and our photographer wanted it to be a little darker outside so the candles and lights would come up better. After taking all of our cute pictures, Marshall and our photographer started explaining crazy last minute changes that affected them both! Marshall wasn't originally going to propose on the doc, but there was a small concert on the landing in the area he originally planned. Come to find out, 15 minutes before I walked down with my family, security showed up saying they had to rent the space because it was privately owned. There was no name or number, or any sort of sign that showed you couldn't use the doc... but it was $1200 to rent it! Everything was super crazy.. but they were able to continue without worry as long as we cleaned up afterwords. I wasn't expecting him to propose on our trip until I got a few hints... but it is really hard to keep secrets and still get someone to do specific things like dress up, and I couldn't be happier! We are both so excited to start our life together.