The Wedding.

William and I got married on June 29, 2012 in Houston, Texas. It was a beautiful day filled with our family and friends. I loved seeing all my hard wedding-planning work come to life and feeling the love and support of so many people that did so much to help pull it off. We couldn't be more grateful.

Our photographer was my friend Brooke Schultz. She was amazing; you can see our engagement and wedding photos featured here, here, and here. Brooke also sent the pictures into Style Me Pretty and they featured our wedding! I have never felt so cool on the internet before.

I love him, he loves me. Couldn't be luckier.

The Story.

I wrote our story down last December so I could always remember the little details. It's really really long, and not worth reading unless you are me or William, so here is the quick version:

We met last summer being counselors for EFY in San Antonio. It was three weeks of fun with smelly teenagers, and we started hanging out a lot in the last week. He even convinced me to skip free time duty and he took me to Panera for my birthday. We spent the rest of the summer texting about Harry Potter, and finally he came through Provo on his way to Rexburg and took me on a date. Then he came back to Provo and took me on a third date. We laughed, I was really nervous, we held hands, we kissed. A few days later we decided we were only dating each other. So we did the whole long distance thing for a while. Two months later we said the "I love yous". A few weeks after that we knew we wanted to get married. He moved to Provo. And February 11, he proposed.

It was a whirlwind. It was the most fun and exciting time of my life. It was perfect, and it just keeps getting better.

Here is the long version, just for my own organizing sake:

On June 26, 2011, the counselors for San Antonio, Texas EFY were meeting for a pre-session devotional. I did the only natural thing for any 21-year-old girl, I walked in and scanned the room for attractive male potentials. It only took me about 5 seconds to notice the cute light-haired boy with an overbearing brow, but I instantly thought, “Already sitting with cute girls. Probably too cool for me. Not happening.” And I pushed it from my mind.
After a week of screaming and sweating with a bunch of awesome teenagers, it was Sunday once again. I was finding out which counselors would have the blessing of having my siblings and cousins, and learned that cute blue-eyed boy would be my cousin’s counselor. I introduced myself and went straight to a friendly threat. “You better be like, a really really good counselor for my cousin, or you’ll have to answer to me.” Ok, it was meant to be friendly, but for some reason he didn’t completely dismiss me as a crazy person.
Tuesday night, July 5, I was dancing the night away with some smelly teenagers, and low and behold, one teenager was a little extra smelly, if you catch my drift (pun intended). As part of the dance floor cleared, I walked past that cute and crazy-dancing boy and teased, “That was you wasn’t it?” Ladylike, right? To my surprise, a few songs later he came to ask me to dance. We spent the entire song talking about smelly teenagers and bathroom humor, and somehow we both left that dance slightly impressed with one another. That night we became Facebook friends, of course.
On Wednesday morning I had class duty, which means I just had to stand around and lead the participants to class. “Cute boy,” who I was now referring to by “Will,” walked past and mentioned that he didn’t even know what to do for class duty. “Well, you could just stand around with me until my duty is over.” And he did. We went to class together and just sat in the back, whispering the whole time. We did the same after lunch, and he invited me to go to Walmart during free time with him and Heather. At this point, I was totally crushing, and totally thrilled that there was a chance he might be interested at me. He was hilarious, attractive, and didn’t mind my crazy, loud, scratchy-voice-from-screaming-too-much self. What more could I ask for?
We went to a seriously scary Walmart, and Heather, Will and I joked about fiber, tampons, and breaking the word of wisdom with Monster energy drinks. Afterwards, we stopped by Chipotle for burritos and then went to Panera Bread so Heather could get a sandwich. And this is where I proceeded to eat an entire Chipotle burrito in under five minutes. Attractive and apparently somewhat impressive. We went back to EFY and resumed our counselor lives. That evening, I uncharacteristically opened Facebook chat, hopeful. And there he was, posting pictures of me and my burrito on Facebook! We chatted until too late that night, and he promised me a Panera dessert for my birthday. I was really excited, but tried to suppress it in case he wasn’t totally serious.
I woke up the next morning as a 22-year-old, and spent extra time getting ready. Maybe because it was my birthday, maybe because I had a maybe-date with cute-blue-eyed-hilarious-light- haired-over-bearing-brow-boy-Will. Your call. That morning the girls and boys separated, so I didn’t see him until lunch. By then I had a serious Will-radar going. And he looked good. Free time came around and we somehow found each other and hung out in a lobby with about 6 other counselors, before looking around and realizing that doing our duty was absolutely useless. He went upstairs to grab his computer so we could watch YouTube videos, but came back about 2 minutes later saying, “It’s your birthday. Let’s go to Panera.”
After arguing over the moral dilemma I would have from skipping free time duty, and trying, but failing, to convince another counselor friend to come with us (mostly because I was really, really nervous), somehow I found myself in his blue truck, on our way to Panera Bread.  He asked what kind of music I listen to, and I obviously told him “really scary rap music with lots of cuss words.” Next thing I knew, we were listening to really scary rap music, really loudly. And for some strange, unknown reason, this was his successful plan to woo me. We split a cobblestone sweet muffin at Panera, and I was so excited. He took silly pictures of me, told me his whole family actually calls him William, and told me I could only delete some of his pictures of me if I put my number in his phone.

The next day, a few (ridiculous) people actually warned me to “be careful around that one.” They had been picking up on our little fling. I usually would have taken those words of “advice” to heart, but for some reason I chose to ignore them and make my own opinions. After the service project, I knew that he was hanging around to see if we were going to spend free time together again, and I went around and talked to a bunch of different people to see how long exactly we would wait, and he definitely did! I mentioned that he needed to hang out with me when he went through Provo on his way to Rexburg to attend BYU-Idaho, but I don’t think he took me seriously!

Friday night was the last dance of the summer, and he owed me one. I spent the whole night with my William-radar on, making sure to be in close proximity, hoping for some interaction. He didn’t dance with me once, but he did ask one of my girls to dance when she was partnerless and chatted for a bit, so I wasn’t completely bummed out. That night on Facebook chat he explained that he had tried, and another counselor always beat him to me during counselor dances. He was going to break the rules and dance with me during the last slow song even though it wasn’t a counselor dance, but he couldn’t ask me and leave the last teenage girl I was standing with. What a sweet boy.

The next day was the end of EFY. He sat with me during the counselor breakfast, and I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to see him again. After circling through everyone else twice, I said an awkward goodbye and left. I didn’t know if I was going to hear from him or not.

We spent the next two weeks texting, mostly about Harry Potter, and I wondered if he was actually going to hang out with me when he came through. I mean, he texted me constantly throught out the day, he has to like me, right? We made plans for July 22.

He picked me up and we went to Jamba Juice, where he proceedeed to make me drink caffiene and asked if I’d ever told anyone I loved them. He was being really goofy, and I wasn’t so sure if I’d forced him into this or if he really wanted to hang out. I also wasn’t sure if he was considering it a date until he said, “I am going to tell all my friends I took an older girl out.” So charming, right? We went to see Captain America, which we laughed all the way through, and we teased each other the whole night but when he dropped me off and gave me an “awkward hug” (those were his words, not mine), I just wasn’t convinced it was going to happen.

I left the next day for a family vacation to Colorado, and didn’t hear from him THE ENTIRE WEEK. Every time we drove into a town with cell phone service, I would anxiously check my texts and be disappointed. Every time. My family asked about it, and my sister-in-law encouraged me to send him a message on Facebook, just to keep up contact. I was scared, but I eventually convinced myself to go ahead with it (he swears he was going to text me when I got back from vacation... riiiight).

On August 12, he was back in Provo with his friend for a wedding, and we met up at the In-N-Out with Zach and Kendra, and then headed to Costco where I let them use my card to buy Mexican Coke and peanut butter filled pretzels, thanks to some convincing from me. And then we said bye. I was really annoyed and really finished. That was it? He was going to be here all weekend and all I got was a trip to Costco because I had a card? So done. Until later, when we talked online again, of course. I asked him if he was doing anything the next night and he said no, and waited a long time to continue, just to let me squirm. Then he finally asked me if I wanted to do something with him, and of course I accepted. I was way too excited to go out with a boy I had been annoyed with minutes earlier! I laughed at my own mood swing, and then made a secret goal to hold his hand by the end of the night.

He picked me up and he took me to Mo’Betta Steaks, a Hawaiin barbeque place in Salt Lake, where I only ate half my chicken and promised him I wasn’t “one of those girls,” I just really couldn’t finish it. Them he told me we were going go-karting. I was nervous and did not want to go-kart in the least bit, but totally pretended like I was ok with it (sort of, I think he picked up on my hesitation). And then I definitely beat him by like 15 minutes; he was really slow and I was really attractive in my hair net. Ok, I’m lying. Then we went to Bruges Waffles where we had the most amazing waffles and I avoided eye-contact while we chatted. I thought it was the end of the date and that we hadn’t gotten anywhere. I was definitely not going to make my goal. Then, when the conversation was winding down, he said those three fateful words. “Let’s go somewhere.”

He took me to a lookout (which I later found out was nicknamed “Makeout Point,” smooth) where we talked for hours about past relationships, how many people we’ve kissed, etc. Finally we sat down close to each other and he finally grabbed my hand. Goal accomplished! We sat until our bums ached, and finished our conversation in his truck. At around one in the morning, I insisted that he take me back to Kendra’s house to my car. We got back and he walked me to my car, where we awkwardly talked for another hour waiting for neighbors and other stragglers to leave. At this point I totally knew what he was planning, and my brain was running 100 mph. I don’t let just any boy kiss me, but I REALLY like this one. How would I get out of it anyway? Of course I was going to let him. And at around two in the morning, we had our first kiss.

There was no turning back, I completely adored him. We talked on the phone every night, and when I got asked on two dates four days later, I asked him if it was ok that I turned both of them down, and that’s when we finally made it official. Exactly one month later, when I first cried in front of him because I was sad he had to go, he told me he loved me, and I told him I loved him right back. It was only the next weekend when the subject of marriage was brought up.

And we are getting married on June 29, 2012. I love you so much William, more than I ever knew was possible and I can’t wait for that love to just keep growing and growing for all eternity. You are  my love, my best friend, my everything. You keep me laughing and smiling, and my heart aches for you when you are away. Every day is so fun and exciting when I wake up and know that I am yours. Thank you for being good to me every second of every day. Thank you for loving me so fiercely and being everything I could ask for. I love you.

Welcome to the Morris'.

Well, here we are on the blog bandwagon. And I couldn't be happier!

A lot of friends had told me to start blogging again, and I was going back and forth on the decision. I thought, 1 of 3 things will happen:
1. I would start a blog and completely neglect it so it would be a waste of cyber space.
2. I would start a blog and be completely obsessed and turn into the annoying girl with her camera in your face.
3. I would start a blog and no one would want to read it because I'm not as funny as I think I am.

But once my sister-in-law Megan told me she'd wished she'd started her blog earlier in marriage, I was finally convinced it was worth it. So this is where we'll write our story (well, where I'LL write our story, hopefully I can convince William to do some writing every once in a while)!

Here's to finding a happy medium and (hopefully) making you laugh along the way!

photo by Brooke Schultz Photography.