Weddingbee bios

I was born in North-Central PA, then moved to Texas to live with my grandparents when I was two. I grew up in a really, really small town in South-Central Texas, then went to college in Austin. About a year after college, I moved back up to North-Central PA to be closer to my birth mother and 2 younger half-brothers.

My B.A. is in writing and rhetoric, and I have a Master of Liberal Arts degree as well. I currently work in marketing & communications for an engineering department at a major research university.

He was born and raised in North-Central PA, and works in human resources for a local transportation company. We have two pit bulls, a brindle female named Tara, who's five, and a black lab-mix pit named Sage, who's three.

We live together in a really small town so we keep each other occupied with dog-walks, long country drives , and backyard get-togethers with the friends he's had all his life. We also like working on our house (which is a rental but we'll be there for a while), and we love to cook.

The story of how we met is not at all romantic, but nevertheless, it's ours. While in grad school I was working part-time at a small beer bar in the town where we now live. The bar owner is my mom's best friend so the place is a huge part of my life. Anyway, I was working one night and the owner told me that someone wanted to meet me and would be in later.

That someone was not my fiance. He did come in that night, though, with his whole "posse," which included my fiance. The guy who did want to take me out asked me in front of everyone, so what was I to say? I did hang out with him that night, but resolved not to date him because he had "cuter friends." (It's one of my rules - if his friends or his brother are cuter, well, hold out.)

A couple of months later, I was parking at the big 4th of July motorcycle club party when I heard someone shouting at me about the Element shirt I was wearing. I totally blew him off because I thought he was making fun of me for looking frumpy (which I totally did).

Then, this random person added me on myspace and said that I'd dated his friend (the first someone who came into the bar). But I didn't recognize his picture so continued to ignore him.

Finally, about 6 months after our first encounter at the bar, I was in another bar (gosh this makes me sound like a drunk) with my current boyfriend (a real loser, if anyone's keeping score) and a party bus rolled up outside with a huge group of people. A really hot guy walked in and as I was walking to the bathroom, approached me - and knew my name. I was thinking, "Wow, this guy's cute, but who the heck is he?" I asked him, and when he told me I finally connected him to the guy on my myspace!

I didn't talk to him for long because if I would've, my then-boyfriend would have gone ballistic and started a scene, but not long afterward I broke up with him and started pursuing my future husband

It wasn't until months later that I realized he was also the guy from the motorcycle club! Fate was truly on our side!

I knew his proposal was forthcoming - like, within a year or so. I knew he planned on asking me to marry him and I knew it had been on his mind for some time. Two weeks before it happened, he emailed me at work (we always email back and forth a lot) and asked if I maybe wanted to go to a jewelry store while we were at the mall that weekend.

My heart did total cartwheels and I ran over to my co-worker's office to tell her. But before I let myself get too excited, I emailed him back to ask him what he wanted to do there. For all I knew, he had a watch that needed a new battery or something! He said he wanted to look at rings!

Well, that weekend came and went. We didn't go look at rings. It was hard to hide my disappointment, but I tried my hardest. Then the next week, he emailed me on a Wednesday and asked if I maybe wanted to go out for a nice dinner on Saturday night. This should have triggered alarm bells for a number of reasons, one being that we already live together and most certainly do not need to be making advanced plans for dinner, and the other being that he's extremely frugal and doesn't like to go to nice restaurants!

But I thought he was just being nice, even after my best friend said, "Maybe you'll get your ring tonight!" I thought it was horse-hockey though because we'd never gone to look! I mean, how could he possibly pick out a ring without my help?!?

The Night!

So after a long day at the house doing work (I was preparing a presentation for a conference and he was paining our laundry room), he took me out to dinner at the nicest restaurant in town (literally - it's a small town and there's only like two nice places to eat - lol). Seriously, I still thought nothing of it, really. I ordered the surf and turf and the bacon-wrapped scallops as an appetizer, then apologized for ordering the most expensive stuff on the menu. I think I said, "Don't worry buddy, I'll pay you back." Heh!

We're sitting there talking when the appetizers come, and he starts acting a little funny:

Him: Do you love me?

Me: Of course I do, silly!

Him: Do you love me more than anyone else?Me: Duh.

Him: Do you love me more than rhetoric?

Me: Yup! (I'm thinking, "Duh, or I'd be in grad school right now...")

Him: Is there anything you do love more than me?

Me: Well, probably our dogs - I mean, they need me more...

Him: Fair enough...

I figure the conversation is over and I stuff a huge scallop in my mouth. Then I see him reach in his coat pocket on the back of his chair, and I go blank a little bit - you know, that fuzzy feeling when something crazy is about to happen and you think you might pass out. He pulls out a black box and opens it and gets on one knee and asks me to marry him. I nearly choked on the scallop, which took me several long seconds to chew and swallow before I could sputter out, "No s*** are you f***ing kidding me?!? Oh My God."

I'm not sure if I ever actually said, "Yes," but he got the point.

Over the rest of our dinner - which I couldn't eat thanks to being too excited and in shock - we texted friends the good news and he told me the story of how he asked my dad!

Asking For My Hand...

Two nights before we went to dinner, I had been at the gym after work doing kickboxing. Come to find out, my fiance had rifled through my phone to find my dad's phone number (he lives over 1,000 miles away). While I was at the gym, FH mustered up all his courage and called my dad. Of course, the first thing he probably thought was, "Oh, no - and why aren't you calling the hospital and/or the police first?" LOL! My dad was so shocked when he asked his permission to marry me, he didn't even say yes! In fact, I think he laughed and said, "That's rather old fashioned!" He really respected the gesture though. I think he was just surprised beyond anything that he'd actually been asked! (I'd moved out almost a decade earlier and haven't gotten his permission for anything I've done since.)

Needless to say, he is now the favorite in my family with my parents.

The Ring...

Yes, the part you've all been waiting for. It's a beautiful three-stone, princess-cut ring on a sorta-wide white gold band. It's so perfect for me. And it's everything I could have asked for.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic!

 For anyone in the Central Pennsylvania-area, I highly recommend J&B Bridals in Chambersburg, PA. They are amazing there, they have SUCH a great selection for every budget.

 

Lots of these images are from other wedding blogs, of course! And I know one of the Bee's hairdos made the board as well. =) This thing is such a work-in-progress...