The Romantic.com

My husband and I are newlyweds we just got married on September 18, where we shared our first kiss at the altar.

We had been courting about 7 months when he realized he couldn’t live without me and stay unmarried to me. I went away for over a month to visit my sister overseas, while she had her third baby. Truly absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Soon after I returned, he proposed. We had been courting 8 1/2 months. We went to a wedding faire after church one Sunday. It only happened in our  city once a year and it was the last one I could go to before when we were supposed to get married, even if he hadn’t proposed. I felt kind of dumb going
with my boyfriend and without a ring on my finger, but I always loved wedding stuff anyways, so we went.

When he took me home later that afternoon, the driveway of my parents’ and my house was full. But that wasn’t a surprise to me because I knew my dad’s parents were coming to go out to dinner, and that meant my brother and his family would be over to visit. So we had to park on the other side of the  house (FYI: that way I couldn’t walk in front of the big living room window).

As soon as I reached for the doorknob, I heard music. Jazz. That’s funny. I’m the only one that likes it that much to play it throughout the house. The first thing I saw was my brother on the other side of the front room with a video camera filming me! Then I saw the rest of the room, candles and flowers everywhere… including my favorite– calla lilies– picked right from my grandmother’s garden.

Everyone was standing on the outskirts of the room as Joel asked me to sit down on the couch — my dad, mom, brother, sis-in-law, niece, both sets of my grandparents, and our two doggies. Joel sat down beside me.

Joel picked up the candle that was on the coffee table and said that is represented our faith in God and how Christ was and always will be the light in center of our relationship.

Then he picked up the rose that was laying across the BIG family Bible that was laid open. He said the rose represented his love for me. (FYI: We had saved the words “I love you” until engagement.)

Then he picked up the Bible. Promising to read it everyday and to lead me by its principles, and promising to be my guide, protector, and provider. He then asked me to read the scripture that was highlighted. “He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” Proverbs 18:22.

He then reached behind me and took the small pillow that was behind me. I had never seen it before. One side was old fashioned blue and white fabric of scenes of family and community. That represented his family. And the blue cord that was around the edging was the new family ties that will bond our two families together (his mom had sent both to make the pillow).

He flipped the pillow and it was this totally different white textured fabric, and the ring was tied to the center of the pillow. The fabric was from my mom’s  wedding dress. Her dress was in a perfect piece before this project. My mom’s mother sewed it all together– all the women helped in making this pillow. The ring was my maternal grandmother’s engagement ring.

He untied the ring as he was telling me what a gift I was to him. How he wants to treasure the gift always. And as he untied the ring, he knelt on the pillow on the floor and asked me to be his wife as he slipped on the ring that had celebrated 50 years of marriage that year. I said “Yes!” and we hugged and said “I love you” to one another for the very first time.

Since my family shared in the joy, we have video and pictures of the whole thing from start to finish. Then we all really did go out to dinner.