When Starlings Fall in Love — Part 2

Josh & I by the pond on his parent’s property.

Welcome to part 2! If you are just tuning in you can find part 1 here. Let me set the scene:

I met the man of my dreams, fell in love, and just been proposed to... in the middle of a pandemic.

A little bit of a backstory on Josh: at 45 years old he has never been married and never fathered a child. Yet, he has mentored so many kids over the years and he’s been the best uncle to his nieces and nephews. During family gatherings, as the food was being blessed, it wasn’t uncommon for the family to also pray over Josh for God to bring him a godly wife.

Our marriage is literally an answer to so many prayers by so many people. Every marriage is a big deal, but this marriage feels like a huge win for the kingdom: a divorced, single mom who was holding on to a prophetic dream and God’s promise of a redeemed life meets a never-before-married man with incredible integrity who was patiently waiting on the Lord’s timing to bring him a wife.

So here we are: Engaged. Madly in love. And ready to begin our life together.

But... Coronavirus.

Josh and I had previously talked about how neither of us wanted a long engagement — we honestly weren’t even ok with a medium length engagement. Waiting for everything to go back to normal before getting married didn’t make any sense to us. 

By the next day, we had decided to start piecing together what we needed for a very simple wedding: wedding bands, the venue, the backup venue (thanks COVID), wedding clothes (a dress for me and matching ties/shoes for him and the boys), marriage license, premarital counseling, and a wedding date. While in the midst of stay-at-home orders, we decided to purchase what we could online and just pick a date that would get us down the aisle as soon as possible. We prayed about the wedding date, and then we consulted with our pastors and family to ensure all the major players would be able to attend.

There’s a wedding dress in that bag! Pretty much the entire content of my wedding has arrived in Amazon boxes.

By the evening after our engagement, I had ordered 3 bridal gowns from Amazon. As I pressed the “complete purchase” button I said a prayer that one of them would fit. You may be asking why I would shop for a wedding dress online and why I would purchase THREE of them. Well, there are currently zero stores open that sell wedding dresses. And with delayed shipping, I was concerned that buying and returning individual dresses would take too much time.

We’ve definitely had to think out of the box for most of the wedding plans. For instance, if things stayed as they were in April — we could only have 10 people gather. So we concocted a hair-brained scheme: a drive-in wedding. We would get married in my church parking lot, on a section of landscaping, with our families parked in a half circle while remaining in their cars. However, it looks like things are letting up a little and we have been able to book a small outdoor venue where we can social distance within family units.

I simply wanted the wedding we could afford when the time is right. Meaning, I wasn't going to waste my time fantasizing about extravagant wedding plans that are outside of our modest budget. Those that know me are very aware of how much I love details and making things look beautiful, so don't think for a minute that this wedding will look tacky or cheap. Someone recently asked me what "vibe" I'm going for in regards to our wedding. My response was, "I don't necessarily have a vibe. I guess you could say my vibe is 'work with what you got!' My dress isn't really my dream dress, although I think it's very beautiful, and the wedding decorations are minimal, yet personal. The optics of our wedding are not necessarily what I would've chosen if I had more options, but none of these things really carry much weight to me. The fact is: I don't need my dream wedding because I'm marrying my dream guy. That, right there, makes it my dream wedding."

We have struggled a little with the fact that our friends — and even some of our relatives — won’t be able to attend. Both of us are extremely grateful for how we have been loved and taken care of by our churches and friends. So we decided to hold a BIG reception once we are allowed to gather again so we can celebrate with everyone we love. We also plan to live stream the wedding! Are you ready for the date?! We are getting married June 4th! This is just a few, short weeks away and we are beyond excited to begin our life together. Stay tuned for details on how to watch our wedding!