Today I met the boy i'm going to marry....

I want to get married in the fall. outside. probably barefoot. I want everyone  to come and wear whatever they want. I want them to eat really great food, and laugh and dance. Under outdoor twinkle lights and a sky that's full of stars.

I want to stand in the mirror and look at my dress with my mom and my grandma and some other important women in my life who have gone before me and have showed me how this motherhood, womanhood, wife thing is done.

I want there to be homemade signs, and vows, and i want to take a time to celebrate hugely important couples in our lives. I want my wedding to honor the community of people that has loved us up to this point. I want to celebrate the love God gives us.

I want us to hold hands and pray as a body that we will support each other especially when things get hard.

And I want to drive away in a car form the 40's, and I want people to tell funny stories, and i want to stand up with my new husband and give a speech gushing about all the people who love in the room and how thankful we are for every person.

I want my wedding to be small enough that i can hug every single person there and thank them for coming....and for loving me. and him. and us. I wanna dance with my dad and laugh a lot about how we never really thought this day would come. I wanna sit and chat with the non-dancers.

and twirl with the little girls in pretty dresses. and dance with my boys.

i just want it to be an outward reflection of the love I have for a boy and for all the people in my life, and how cool it is that God gave us people to love us and hang with us. I want this day to point to how amazing and loving our God is and less to how great of a couple we are.

I think now more than ever I am beginning to understand what marriage looks like. That it's hard work every day. That you wake up choosing to say "for better or worse" and there will be "for worse" and you'll want to slammed your head into a wall but love looks like choosing to say "we'll figure it out." and say "i love you more than ____fill in the blank" and there are also days where you barely see each other and you're too tired to talk and you just head nod and fall asleep....and even in those moments its knowing that it wont always be like that, and hopefully you continue to fall more in love with your person. and you still laugh with them more than anything else.

and i'm young...ish. and i am still a hopeless romantic. and I think that everything will be as magical.

but i reserve the right to be wrong, too.

and while we're on the subject....

I think about baby names a lot, which is ridiculous and weird but three girl names that i am diggin' currently are: Celia, Lucy, and Georgia.

I know. a state. really? It's just...pretty. kinda. I'd call her peach...ha. you see what i did there? but for real i would.

and if i had a boy, i'd probs go with: Malakai, Charlie, Luke, Jonah, Alex, and i really like Clark, Gus and Atticus but i would NEVER do that to a kid.

so three cheers for the future and nothing turning out like i planned. ever