Wedding Date on Dec 8, 2018

Going to rival high schools, you wouldn’t think there would be much opportunity for our paths to cross but fortunately our high school cross country teams co-hosted practice during the late spring and summer AND fortunately we had mutual friends, or our paths might not have crossed at all! I noticed James at the practices which I would attend to train for tennis and added him on Facebook. He wasn’t sure who I was, but lucky for me one of his best friends knew me from middle school and vouched for me. James reached out to me via a post I made on Facebook one day. After casually talking for a few weeks we scheduled our first date. The rest, as they say, is history! I actually recently found out that on the day of our first date (circa 2010) James was dropping his sister off somewhere and mentioned as she sat in the front seat “be careful, someone very special is going to be sitting there.” She told me after we got engaged. Soon after our first date, we began spending our weekday afternoons attending each other’s athletic events and weekends at the beach or on the boat. We broke up right before leaving for college (I went to UF and James went to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut). We were each other’s “first love” and I thought I found the “one” then, but was also skeptical on if I was too young for that to be a valid feeling. Fast forward 3 years, when James spent his last year of college trying to win me back to no avail. Finally, right after we graduated college I was passing through Jacksonville FL, James’ duty station at the time, and we decided to have dinner. Right before I left he gave me a bundle of love letters he had written throughout the past few years. The letters put all of the feelings that began in high school and never left into words and I knew that it wasn’t a question of if I should give it another shot, but when. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. We dated for another 2 and a half years long distance each of us moving a couple of times before James proposed. In 2017 I was working in Pittsburgh and James was stationed in Jacksonville so we decided to spend a long weekend back in our hometown of Hobe Sound/Stuart FL. James picked me up super late at the airport. I asked if we could grab food and he immediately started texting on his phone… I didn’t realize it at the time, but apparently I messed up the timing! We finally arrived at his parents house and he asked if I wanted to check out the tree house. I thought it was odd he wanted to go up in the tree house, but decided to follow him up the spiral staircase. When I got to the top a million Christmas lights that were in the tree turned on and on the platform there was a crate with a golden retriever puppy sleeping inside it. A sign on the crate said “Will you be my mommy?” and then James got down on one knee and asked me to marry him with the most beautiful ring. How could I say no with a ring AND a puppy! The tree house has our names engraved in it from 2010 and it was the spot of our first kiss in high school. It’s always been a special place to us. Since this was a Coast Guard wedding, we decided to incorporate many of the military traditions. One of the fun aspects of a military wedding was the incorporation of a sword arch when we left the church. The priest instructed all of the guests to exit the church and wait in the parking lot. All of the military members in uniform lined up outside the door with their swords and James’ uncle who was in the Marine Corps directed all the commands. When all the swords were raised into the arch James and I exited the church. Right as we were about to walk through the last part, the 2 groomsmen at the end of the arch blocked our path with their swords and we kissed. As we kissed, I received the shock of my life when I was slapped on the butt with one of the swords and all the groomsmen yelled, “welcome to the Coast Guard!” This made for some great photos. We did a couple of untraditional things at our wedding that I think made it special and unique. We had our golden retrievers brought to the church courtyard after the ceremony for some photos. They wore little bow ties! This was huge for us since our dogs are such a huge part of our life… They were even featured on the Save the Date and the cake topper! We also had a sending off brunch the following morning at Pirates Loft where we had a large room block. A few months ago James surprised me with our very own boat and named it the Stevie A.. The boat was docked at the marina connected to the hotel. After brunch, everyone lined up on the dock and waved goodbye and we cruised off (eventually to Hawaii later that day!)