As a wedding photographer, I love love stories. I love to hear about them and the excitement of it all. So often I’m asked about me and Steven and our story (it was quite the fast whirlwind!), so here I am, sharing our story from the moment I actually noticed him, to when we said “I do!”
“I’m so sorry. I overslept so I got to campus late, and now my car battery is dead! Can we still go??”
I had sent him a frantic message as I was waiting for public safety to come jump the battery on my parents Dodge Caravan. Little did I know that would be the LAST time I moved out of a dorm. I was there to haul the last of what I had in my dorm room, because I had worked a 40 hour weekend and didn’t get it all done the week before and I was on a time crunch.
Steven and I had plans to go to Acadia on that day (May 9th, 2011) because that had sort of become “our” spot that we liked to go to together! There was a trail there that was really beautiful and you all know how much I love the ocean! But even more so, we were going on that day because I was leaving within the next couple of days for a two week trip to Italy, and this would be our last chance to hang out.
Finally the van was started, and I was on my way home and I got home just as the sun was starting to set. I was bummed because I really wanted to be in Acadia for the sunset (I am also obsessed with sunsets!) and it had been raining that day as well. Steven was so good and just kept telling me that it was all okay and that we’d still have a good time regardless of when we got to Acadia. He met me at my parents house and I basically jumped out of the van, put my stuff in the back of his car and hopped in.
As I opened up the back of the car to put my bag in, I noticed a box from Tim Hortons (what were they called? mini ho-hos?) and I thought to myself oh my gosh I’d so love to eat one of those right now, and I went to reach for it but something stopped me and I just got in the front seat instead. On the way to Acadia the sky was blazing pink and red and there was a double rainbow after the rain. I remember looking out the window and saying to Steven “Look at that rainbow. How can anyone see that and not know that everything is going to be okay, that it’s a good day?”
It was completely dark when we got to the park. I don’t actually remember where we drove to but we stopped at a pull out and got out so I could hear the ocean. Couldn’t see a damn thing, but hearing it was enough for me. Then Steven asked me to get back in the car and sit on the driver’s side because he wanted to play a new song he had learned on guitar.
That’s weird. I didn’t know Steven actually played guitar.
He was SO nervous and I couldn’t figure out why. He even asked me to look away because he was so nervous while he played. He sang the opening song to Juno, and I thought that it was seriously just the sweetest thing that’s ever happened to me. At one point he said “All I want is you will you be my bride?” and I totally looked over in a moment of panic and realized that it was actually just a lyric in the song.
Phew.
Then he paused, put the Tim Horton’s box in my lap and kept singing and playing the guitar. I opened the donut box and inside was a box from Day’s Jewelers.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think clearly. I didn’t even open the box.
Steven stopped singing and then he said a bunch of really sweet things that I can’t remember because I was in shock, and he told me all the promises that ring represented and then he asked me to MARRY him!!!
I said YES! I still hadn’t even opened the box yet, and all I could think was how incredibly excited I was to spend the rest of my life with the best man I knew. And, he did it by the ocean, my favorite place in all the world.
Everything started to make sense – why he was at his friend’s house learning to play guitar; why he still wanted to go to Acadia even though it’d be dark; why he was so freaking nervous!! Gosh, I just knew that I loved him more than anything.
And that my friends, is the beginning of our “forever”!We’ve only got two more posts left before this series ends!
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