Since this blog is about my husband, myself, and our new life together i thought i should start at the
beginning of our new life, our engagement. Patrick and I met my freshman year of college and started dating on April 16, 2005. We were
inseparable throughout college, then my senior year (Pat had already graduated) Pat was relocated to
Pittsburgh for training with his new job with Norfolk Southern. For me this meant one of two things 1- we were surely going to break up, i was a senior and six hours away from the man i loved or 2- we would grow stronger and survive this time apart. Well after some serious nightly prayers and a lot of hard work and miles on the road Patrick and i grew stronger than ever. On December 24, 2008 Patrick took me to a beautiful dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and popped the question right in the middle of the
restaurant. Of course i said yes. Following the proposal we met the rest of Patrick's family at St. Louis Bertrand,
their family church to share the good news and go to Christmas Eve Mass. I had so much to be thankful for, god had and has blessed me in so many ways.
After the engagement things seemed to be fast and furious all around me. I planned almost my whole wedding in two weeks, keeping every detail (
including the engagement itself) secret from my best friends, my
Tri-Delta Sorority sisters. When winter break was finally over i was able to go back to school and attend the weekly meeting with my sisters. I will never forget my favorite night of college, my candlelight. For those not familiar with
sorority vernacular a
candlelight is the revelation of a secret pinning, pearling, or proposal. It is every
sorority girls dream to have a candlelight, to be surrounded by 100 of her closest friends and have all eyes on her when she is able to announce the man that she loves has finally popped the question, then she gets to show off her ring. The entire thing was wonderful and it really was one of my favorite memories from college. I will never forget standing between Laura and Alli and finally blowing out the candle, the punching and crying that followed all seems so surreal now, but i was so real and wonderful then. I wanna thank all of you girls, and you know who you are that made my senior year so wonderful. I love you all so much and miss you all every day!
In the weeks that followed, now with the help of my sorority sisters i completed all the final details, the date was set for November 7, 2008. We had a wonderful
photographer, Jessica Powell of Vogue Visions photography. She was wonderful to work with and one of my favorite parts of the whole planning process were the engagement photos. I'll work on posting a few!