Austin and I met when we were in seventh grade. It wasnt until eighth grade that we actually started “dating” though! Austin and I both grew up in Simpsonville, SC about three miles apart. We went to the same middle school and one day during our eighth grade orientation as I was walking the halls with my mom (LOL) I walked by this cutie boy who said “hi” to me. I immediately FREAKED out and looked at my mom and said “MOM, he said hi to ME!!!!” She laughed at me as we continued to walk down the hall. Little did she know this cutie boy that said hi to her daughter would be her son-in-law.
Fast forward to October 22nd, 2009 Austin asked me to be his girlfriend and naturally I said… NO. But dont worry friends, I said yes ten seconds later. We then started our dating journey and by dates I mean Austin’s parents would pick me up and drop us off at the Movies! 😉 We finished middle school together and started high school together, with a bunch of bumps along the way, but lets be honest who doesnt have bumps, especially at that young of an age!
Believe it or not, it wasnt until our junior year of high school that we got super serious about our relationship. We both decided we wanted to attend the same college. We both moved down to Columbia for our freshman year of college and that is when things started to take off for our relationship. We spent every moment we could together. We started talking about marriage more frequently and talked about when we thought about when we wanted to get married. We both knew we wanted to get married during college. We dated for so long we really didn’t see a reason to wait. Ya know?
In July of 2016, right after sophomore year and right before we went into junior year of college, Austin’s parents so generously took us on a MAGICAL vacation in the Dominican Republic. This was my first out of country of vacation so I was so excited! At this point Austin and I had been dating for SIX years! I’d be lying if I said I wasnt hoping Austin would ask me to marry him, BUT he didnt. We were almost done with our amazing vacation and there was no sign of Austin asking, so I gave up the idea and continued to enjoy our vacation. The last night of the vacation rolled around and as Austin and I were getting ready for dinner, Austin’s dad knocked on the door. I opened the door and he handed me a voucher for a romantic dinner, he told me that since he and Austin’s mom were there celebrating their anniversary, the resort gave them this voucher, but they weren’t interested so he wanted us to have it. I didn’t think anything of it, I was just excited! We walked into the restaurant and were led to a table covered in rose petals along with a bottle of pink champagne waiting for us. Before the waiter came over Austin told me he wanted to read something to me, he pulled out a letter. What I didnt know is that Austin brought a letter with him that I wrote him when I was fourteen that was labeled “open before you propose to me”. Austin began reading the letter that my fourteen year old self wrote, I instantly started crying because it was finally happening! After reading the letter Austin stood me up, got down on one knee, and then asked me to spend the rest of his life with him. I happily said yes!
We began planning our wedding, which was sooooo easy thanks to our all inclusive wedding venue! I remember thinking how easy wedding planning was thanks to the Gassaway Mansion, most brides stress about things like table cloths and chairs, but thankfully I didnt have much stress! We decided to start a tradition of pink champagne since that was what we drank when we got engaged, so we had it on our wedding day as well. Our wedding was everything I could have ever imaged it to be and more! Austin and I did a first look, and my goodness, ya’ll it made me feel so much better! I was so nervous before but once I saw Austin my nerves were gone! Don’t worry ya’ll, Austin cried when he saw me at our first look and when I walked down the aisle. 😉
We just celebrated our one year wedding anniversary this past May and we invited Ashleigh Donahue to capture some sweet memories for us, and she didn’t disappoint!
Before we get to the good photos, lets take a trip down memory lane! 😉
High school and the start of college, those days really feel like they were yesterday!!!
Fast forward to our engagement! I can honestly still feel butterflies when I look at these photos!!!
Now the good part…. when we got married last May. Our wedding was everything I could have imagined and more! All of our engagement photos and wedding photos were taken by Christi Johnson, she was so incredible! Here are just a couple from our wedding!
And the most recent, our anniversary session with my sweet friend, Ashleigh Donahue!
