Wedding Date on Jul 1, 2017

From the bride: We met at a very early age in Englewood, CO. Our families live less than a mile from each other and our mothers became friends after joining the same Mom's In Touch group, at our elementary school. Amado and my older brothers were childhood friends, and his older sisters used to babysit me. Our parents have been very close friends, ever since we were tiny. Amado’s father started a non-profit mentoring organization, Save Our Youth, of which my dad is on the board and my mom is a longtime mentor. Amado and I were around each other quite a bit growing up; while he and my brothers would hangout, and as years went on, each Christmas season, when our families would get together for Christmas Dinners. We would interact here and there but it was never very extensive and nothing significant transpired- but I had always admired Amado, from a very young age. While Amado and I were in college, our parents met up in Chicago to watch one of Amado’s football games. Northwestern was playing Ohio State, so I flew to Chicago to meet up with my parents and watch. Amado was the place-kicker for Northwestern and I was a Buckeye fan attending nearby Xavier University. Even then, however, Amado was so shy, and we hardly spoke. Fast-forward about 7 years. I had a conversation with my mom that revealed I had, for a long time, been very interested in Amado, but thought that there would be NO way he would ever be interested in me. This conversation, conveniently, just so happened to get around to Amado’s parents, who told Amado. He was surprised as well, as he had thought the same of me. He reached out to my brother the next day to grab a drink and catch up.... :) From there, long story short, we ended up talking every day for 2 months, until our first date over Thanksgiving. We fell in love with each other very quickly! We knew we had all the foundational elements to our relationship, it was just a matter of whether we would click and have that chemistry, which we certainly did. At the time I was living in Houston, Texas for work, and Amado had just moved to Napa, California, for work. So our whole relationship consisted of monthly flights and weekend trips to visit each other, long phone calls, and 1,000's of texts, emails, letters, and facetimes. This all led up to Amado proposing to me at our favorite neighborhood winery in Napa Valley, at the end of a wonderfully thought out, romantic day, and extremely elegant and beautiful proposal! I moved to Napa Valley just before our wedding and have since been offered a job at that same winery. We are going to be starting our married life in our cute little teeny tiny house, in Napa with my (now OUR) cat, Sherman, Who Amado is learning to love just as much :) I LOVE!!! Amado’s love for Christ, and his conviction to lead a life rooted in Christ's love and design for marriage and family. I also LOOOVE his sense of humor. We laugh constantly, no one makes me laugh as much as he does. He loves me, respects me, and every day we pour our hearts equally into developing our relationship and respect for one another. Life is going to be so fun and I'm happy I get to have him forever. Also, he is DANG good looking :) Yum We love to laugh, eat good food, drink yummy wine, travel, explore, and spend as much time outdoors as possible! Throughout the planning process, I learned to take a step back as often as possible to enjoy the work and time that went into all the details of planning our wedding. This is the longest part of the experience, and you essentially get to live out each detail, that will be gone in a flash on the day itself! So soak it up, even if it seems a bit overwhelming at times, it is such a joyous thing that you are working on. A big thing that I realized on the day of the wedding, is that it all feels like an out of body experience. I would recommend getting as much sleep as possible!! And stay hydrated and well fed. Its amazing how quickly you can lose brain power! We were so thankful to have a videographer team in KEJ that was able to capture all of the love, and happiness, true emotions and details of the day. That was by far our most worthwhile expense. Also: fun wedding tip from our florist!! Have your flower girl throw the peddles up in the air, instead of to the ground! Adorableeeee