Getting married...

is extremely stressful.

I never want to do it again. And that works out perfectly because we're totally in this for the long haul. No backing out. For time and all eternity... :)

So, we've also discovered that being engaged is actually not very fun at all, just in case any of you were wondering. It was bliss for about 2 days... but I'm so over it now. I just want to be married already. A week or so ago, I expressed these feelings to my grandma, to which she replied,

"Yeah, sounds about right. When you get engaged you learn real fast that you don't get engaged to be engaged... you get engaged to be married."

Wise words, I tell you. Very wise, indeed. Haha.

Only 2 1/2 weeks left until we're MARRIED! I'm SO excited. And I have to admit, I'm ALMOST more excited for the stress of the wedding to be over than I am to actually be married... and I'm really REALLY excited to finally be married to the Love of my life... so that tells you something. Haha.

You might be thinking, "Well, of course you're stressed. With such a short engagement (only 6 weeks) you're probably rushing around like a crazy person trying to get everything done."

I'd like to make it quite clear to everyone, that a 6 week engagement was the BEST decision we could have made. I know myself well enough to know that it wouldn't matter how long we had to get everything ready... I would still be stressing just as much... AND having a longer engagement would only mean I would be stressed out for a longer period of time. No, thank you. Luckily I was able to get a lot of big things out of the way before we were officially engaged... so that has helped. All in all, I think weddings are just stressful all together. Long or short engagement... wedding still equals stress. And that's fine. We'll make it through it. I hear marriage isn't exactly stress-less either. So... yeah. We'll figure it out.

Besides, despite the stress, we're still incredibly happy and in Love. Moral of the story? Love conquers all. Haha.

Engagements

Here are some of our engagement pictures... I'll probably post more later, but these ones should be good enough for now, I think. :)

Isn't our photographer amazing, though? Seriousy! Anne Pearson is such a talented photographer... and has been amazing in every other aspect of this process so far as well! I couldn't have asked for a more perfect photographer for us! :)

Our Love Story

I’ll try to give you all the condensed version (it’s still long). Brian and I met at work. He was actually my boss. Haha. I met him back in May of 2007 and I thought he was cute, but he was my boss so our relationship was completely professional, and that was fine. I put in my two weeks at the end of July (I wanted August to just relax and get ready to go back to school- I was attending Snow College at the time and was just home for the summer). It was around this time that he says something just switched over in his head and for some reason he just HAD to ask me out. He had just put in his mission papers and had just broken up with his girlfriend and was not looking for a new relationship at all. He didn't understand it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he NEEDED to ask me out. Around this same time I had been pouring my heart out to my Father in Heaven because I was feeling direction-less and lost and had become obsessed with the idea of marriage. It was ridiculous. It seriously was getting in the way of me living my life. So as I prayed about all these things it finally came down to this: “I just need to know who I’m going to marry so I can move on with my life. I don’t even care if I have to wait, I just need to know.” That last phrase mostly being said because I had sent off two missionaries that year, and though I hadn't promised to wait for either of them... I wondered if one of them might be the one I was going to marry... Haha. Anyway, after I had gotten my thoughts and feelings out I felt a lot better, and life went on as usual… until Brian asked me out, that is. I was completely oblivious to all of Brian’s advances, and when he finally asked me out he did it in such a way I didn’t realize he was asking me out at all or else I might have rethought my decision. But I told him "sure," and that it sounded like fun. The more I thought about it that weekend the more I started to wonder if he had meant it as a date, but he was my boss… so I thought maybe it was just a friend thing. Well, obviously it turned out to be a date! And it was the most amazing first date ever! We totally hit it off. We even got locked in the Ogden temple grounds at one point! That was hilarious! And later we joked about how we had been “sealed in the temple (*pause*) grounds!” I was SO comfortable around him and we talked so easily and we had so much in common. Basically, I was totally swept off my feet. I even let him hold my hand (which is a big deal for me… especially on a first date!) I suddenly felt so at peace and complete (still feel that way about him). There is so much more to it than this… but basically after that we became inseparable. We both had thoughts of marriage on our second date, but we didn’t voice them at the time. Then, we shared some very spiritual experiences and the idea of us getting married was brought up, discussed and contemplated, but we were still unsure of what exactly was going to happen. And then he got his mission call and I moved back down to Ephraim-- but we still spent an insane amount of time together. I spent every weekend with him. Haha! Either he drove down to see me or I found a ride home and spent it with him... sometimes I would skip my friday classes or monday classes to spend more time with him. Haha. And, surprisingly I still did really well in all my classes! Sorry this is so long... Haha. Brian never came out and asked me to wait, though he told me that he wanted me to, but he could never ask something like that of me. He felt it would be selfish of him. I really DID want to wait, but waiting for a missionary just wasn't logical... But after a few more amazing spiritual experiences with Brian, and after making sure the Lord was behind me, I made the decision to wait, which Brian was very happy about. We talked about marriage a LOT and planned on it. We wrote letters nearly every week he was gone... and we made it. We were both immensely blessed over those two years... and we grew closer together in a way I don't think we could have had we not spent those 2 years apart. He came home November 13, 2009 and it was almost as if he never left. Those 2 years melted away in an instant... and a week later we were officially engaged. We're getting married January 2nd in the Ogden Temple! Yeah... sometimes I think I'm crazy... but I know it's right. I didn't know it was possible to feel so indescribably happy or to Love someone so much. It's an amazing feeling.