wedding post challenge 1-5

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together... etc.

2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?

3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc

4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too?

5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's seem em!

1. Pretty sure I've told these stories on here before, but for the sake of the challenge, I'm repeating: 

how we met: my good friend tracey was getting married in October. her family, the Peavler's, have been friends with their neighbors, the Ashby's since... forever. One of the Ashby's, Devin... was a photographer. Tracey had Devin take her engagements, bridals, and wedding day photos. Her, and our other good friend, Kylee would talk about Devin. That he was cute, and a good photographer. I saw his pictures, and was really impressed. At Tracey's reception, Kylee pointed Devin out to me, and asked me if I thought he was cute. I was there with another guy, and didn't want to offend him, so I didn't say anything. Even though he IS cute... later in the evening, Devin came and took a picture of my, Kylee and Tracey's sister, Shelly. After all the wedding hype was over, Kylee and I were talking on Facebook one day. She told me that Devin had asked about me, asked if I was single... (eeee!!) We became facebook friends and he asked for my number. We talked every single day. 

--okay i just did some major research. meaning i went through my facebook page clear back to October and discovered some helpful timeline inclusions. Right when Devin added me as a friend, I wrote on his wall that I loved Tracey's pictures. That was October 18. I'm guessing that's the day we became facebook friends, too.--

October 21 was our first date. We had found out, among several other ironic coincidences, that we were taking the same math course at UVU. We decided we would get together after Devin's math class (because it was at night) in the UVU library and do homework together.

Ask me how long I took to get ready.

4 HOURS.

moving on.

I got there a little early and picked a seat on the first floor. Devin called me as he was getting out of class and I told him I was by the Starbucks. I thought he knew what I was talking about. Apparently, he head "fabrics" not Starbucks, and got really confused. He finally found me and I was a nervous wreck. But I think I covered it up pretty well. We did our math homework (i was totally not paying attention to my math homework, but it was a really good excuse to avert my eyes in bashfulness) and asked each other small-talk questions. I remember Devin making dinner plans with his brother, Brandon to go to Communal. 

Then, he got a text from his friends, saying they were at Sammy's. He asked me if I wanted to go, and we were out of that library so fast! We went to Sammy's and had grilled cheese sandwiches and an oreo cream pie shake and I met Dane, Jordan, Danica and Ryan. 

And we have seen each other EVERY SINGLE DAY since that first date.

first kiss: October 29. we had made a habit of driving up to south fork to listen to music and have long talks. this was another one of those nights, except we decided we'd go lay in the grass instead of sit in the car because for once, it wasn't raining. we failed to notice how freezing cold it was! we had devin's car blanket, which isn't big enough to wrap around both of us, so we were laying in the grass, really cold, but still having a good time. I remember what I was wearing. I remember thinking he smelled so good. After a long silence, I asked Dev what he was thinking. He said something along the lines of, "I'm thinking that... I want to kiss you."

and I turned to face him and kissed him. 

that's right. I guess that counts as pretty much a tie though. it was a great night. and freezing cold never felt so good!

how long did we date? well, I'd like to think we're STILL dating! we are. we go on dates all the time. and he's a huge flirt. :) but from our first date to being engaged was October 21 - February 25: 4 months.

first picture together: 

this is from one of our first dates. we went to Sean and Chloe's and carved pumpkins with them! Oct. 28. Pretty sure Sean took this for us. Maybe Chloe did. It was on Dev's phone though. Hence the bad quality.

december 5: he said "I love you". it was a sunday. we had gone to his ward, like always, and were taking a sunday nap before going to his parents for sunday dinner, like always. I thought he was sleeping. I was laying on his chest and he whispered it. And I whispered it back. 

2. when I knew he was the one: man, i'm starting to feel so cheesy!

while we were dating, we spent a great deal of time making blueberry pancakes and bacon with V8 and watching TV. it was so much fun.

one night in particular, we were doing just this. we were sitting on the couch, leaning over our plates, watching House Hunters.

I leaned back and looked at Devin sitting next to me, watching TV, eating pancakes at 10 at night, like it was no big deal. And I realized that this was the rest of my life.

And I have to say, that was a pretty safe assumption because that's us in a nutshell! 

I don't remember what day it was. My best guess is some time in November or December. It was still cold outside, and we hadn't talked about marriage yet. Probably November. It was a good night.

3. proposal. i dedicated an entire post to this story, so click here if you don't remember :) it was the greatest proposal ever!

4. the ring: okay... I feel like this is all going to sound like bragging. But I definitely have rights with this beauty:

Devin's good friend Matt Wilson works at Wilson Diamonds in Provo. His Dad is the owner. 

Devin sat down with Richard Wilson (owner) and said he looked at probably 20 diamonds. He looked at loose diamonds and then later picked the setting. He knew he wanted to get me an Oval diamond, so that's what he looked at. The diamond he picked is a 1/2 karat. He picked this one specifically, out of alllll the others because it was the best quality. Better quality than the bigger ones he could have chosen. It was one flaw. Which is just what you want, because if it has no flaws, your diamond is fake. and if it has more flaws... then it has more flaws... haha. The setting he picked has 40 full cut diamonds on the sides.


He had the ring custom mounted on the setting. They had to completely change the way the setting worked because he didn't want the ring to stick out. he wanted it to lay flush. i'm glad he thought of that, because it would drive me nuts to have my ring sticking out. i would snag it on everything, and i heard it's easier to loosen the diamond out of the setting when it's sticking out. and knowing me, i would probably lose it!

The bands are twisted and I love that when you look at the ring from the side, you can see the diamond come to a point on the bottom. It's gorgeous! Last night, we were watching the Bachelorette, watching the guys sit down with Neil Lane and pick out their engagement rings for Ashley. They were looking at these huge rings that look like they were rolled in tiny diamonds... they were so gorgeous.. but I still like mine better. I just can't help it! 

It's absolutely perfect, and Devin picked it out completely by himself. He had told me about his interest in oval diamonds, but that's all I knew. And I had hardly heard of oval diamonds, and fell in love with the idea. I have since only met one other person in the world with an oval diamond ring. I love that it's unique, in a tasteful way. 

(i was too lazy to be picky and choose just a few pictures, so here's a bunch. that's you've probably seen before)

as for Devin's ring: he wanted something really simple. Something that was comfortable, since he doesn't like wearing rings. We got his ring from Wilson, too. And he picked a Tungston. I think it's 6mm. The finish on it is really shiny. I love his ring! It's so cool. And our rings match really well. I don't have a picture of his ring, so here's one I found on the internet that's really similar:

5. engagement/bridal pictures. i've already posted all of them! 

engagements here

bridals here