Engagement Pictures

We got our engagements back. Yay! We got our engagements done at the Tahitian Noni Gardens and Utah Lake- Vineyard area. Totally satisfied with the locations. We heard that you had to make reservations at the Gardens. We tried calling and they said they sold the building. We went and checked out the area and the gate was open and we went and took our pictures. We went back a week later on our own to do our own little re-shoot and the gates were locked. We probably got the last engagement pictures in that area. We got lucky! The gardens might open again with the new owners but in the meantime I'm glad our trespassing paid off :)

Utah Lake was beautiful! There were so many different areas with variety. That place was breathtaking, we loved it. When we were looking at places to take our engagements and we came to the lake, we both knew that was a spot. No questions asked.

Bridal Shower

I had my Bridal Shower this past weekend and it was so much fun! It's making getting married more real! I can't believe that this is actually happening! My mission mom Mama Wick, came out from California and surprised me. She wanted to be there. She told me this was a "golf ball moment" in my life, meaning a big moment and she didn't want to miss it! I love her. A couple of my mission companions came as well, and these girls were my companions when we were teaching Mama Wick and her family. Mama Wick surprised them as well!

The Bridal Shower was amazing! I was able to meet some of the Earl's family and friends that I had never met before. They were all so sweet and I loved them! A lot of people from my ward came as well and I was so happy to see them! I have known many of them since I was around nine years old, so I was really glad that they were there.

Here are some pictures taken at the Bridal Shower. Thanks to all that came! I loved having you there! 

The Bridal Shower Planners

And not Bridal Shower pictures but here are some picture from Mama Wick's brief stay with us in Utah. I really do love her. Seriously, who would travel 637 miles for a 2 hour Bridal Shower and then trek around with us as we did other wedding planning? This woman right here! 

The Proposal- Andrew's Story Part 2

If you haven't read part one yet CLICK HERE. His version was longer than I expected so I needed to break it up into two parts.

Here's the rest of the story :)

...My only other concern was making sure to not let her see it coming. We came up with the idea of a diversion. I told Audrey the night before to keep her Saturday afternoon and evening clear as I had a fun date planned. It wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary as I had done this sort of thing before. Just before 2pm, I went to her house to pick her up. We went out to the car and I blindfolded her. Again, this didn’t give it away because she had blindfolded me for my birthday. We went to Seven Peaks and ice skated with Amy for two hours. If she had thought anything was going to happen, which she didn’t at that point we were hanging out at the ice rink and skating.

After when we were done skating and returning the skates, Amy was like – well I guess I’ll head home. Looking back, Audrey says that seemed a little odd the way she said it and wondered if something was up, but she didn’t pay it any notice. We went out to the car and I told her to put the blindfold back on. Audrey said, “Are you serious?” I said, yep put it on.

We had been talking about wedding color options a lot that week and had said we could go over to Lowe’s to look at paint swatches. So I took her blindfolded to Lowe’s. This time, I wouldn’t let her take off the blindfold until we were nearly inside the store. She was dying wearing it out in front of everyone while we walked through the parking lot. She couldn’t figure out where we were at until she took the blindfold off and then she hit me and said she should have known since we had talked about going there.

At this point, I was just stalling time. I needed to wait until it was dark so the temple would be lit up and my family with Jason and Sarah would be in position ready at Nancy’s house. We wandered around Lowe’s looking for the paint section wasting more time. Once we found it, I made sure to take my time looking through all of the different colors and doing a lot of comparisons. After a bit Audrey was done looking at them and we were looking at spray paints that we could use on frames. After that, it was about time to go. We went out to the car and I made her put the blindfold back on again. She couldn’t believe it, a third time? I asked her if she was hungry and if she was ready to eat. She said sure.

Everything was going perfectly according to plan. Even the weather was cooperating. It was a rainy day and was raining, but it stopped just long enough for the proposal to happen. I needed to throw her off on where we were driving so I took a down and around back way to Nancy’s house. She thought we were at the mall. I pulled in front of Nancy’s house as if I were pulling into a parking spot. I told Audrey that she could not take the blindfold off. She was keeping her eyes shut underneath as well to make sure she wouldn’t see anything.

This time, we had to get out of the car and walk through the backyard before I wanted her taking the blindfold off. This was why I had her almost walk into Lowe’s with it on so she wouldn’t be suspicious. I switched jackets that I was wearing, to get my jacket from the trunk that had the ring in the pocket. Then I helped her out of the car and put her coat on. Then as we did that, the blindfold came off! That just about ruined it. It was such a good thing that she had her eyes closed tight and she promised that she didn’t see anything. I hurried and put the blindfold back on and then started to lead her up the driveway.

She asked, where we were and why it was so quiet. She asked if people were staring at her. I said there are a few people around, but not too many. No one is looking at you. I said there are some people over there, but not by us. Afterwards, she says when I told her that she had the thought that maybe I was proposing because this could be a proposal setting and that those people were probably my family. But still, it couldn’t be because I wasn’t proposing until February. We got into the backyard and onto the grass. She asked if were at a park. I told her no, but we had to park a little ways away and had to walk to where we were eating. I led her down the rock pathway very carefully to the patio. It was all lit up with the flowers placed around in a circle with the temple lit up and no rain. It was perfect. I positioned her on the patio facing out to the temple as I quietly pulled the ring box out of my jacket pocket. Then I got down on one knee, held out the ring and told her she could finally take the blindfold off.

I said, “Audrey Clara Clifton, I love you. Will you mar….” and she smiled and said “YES” before I could even finish “ry me?”. I stood up and we hugged and kissed. Then I took the ring and went to put it on the hand she was kind of holding out. Turns out though, wrong hand. We got it right and put the ring on her left ring finger. We hugged and kissed again and looked up the pathway to see my dad crouched down taking pictures. Then he left us alone and we stood there hugging and looking out at the temple.

She was surprised by it all and didn’t really think it was happening until we were almost in place. It was a perfect night. We went back up to the house where everyone was waiting. Then we went back down to the patio to take some pictures. I texted and called her parents with the address so they could come over and participate in picture taking. It was pretty cold and everyone else went back inside except Jason, Audrey and I. We took some more pictures and then went into the house with everyone else. Nancy and Gifford showed up and we all sat inside the house talking for a little bit before helping Jason and his sister Sarah clean everything up.

Then I had really planned to take Audrey to dinner. So we ran to her house to drop the flowers off there and started calling a few family members to let them know we were engaged. I called my grandparents, my sister Jenna and my uncle Russ first. Then while at Audrey’s house, we decided we had better tell Linda first before any other friends since she set us up.

Audrey FaceTimed her on her phone. Linda answered and she was walking around the mall in California with her brother. We just started talking and then after a minute or two, Linda asked what we were doing as she looked away from the phone. While she wasn’t looking, Audrey held her hand and ring up in front of the camera. When Linda looked back, she saw the ring and was in disbelief. She was so shocked. It was hilarious. She started to get emotional and couldn’t speak she was so happy.

Afterwards, we went to dinner at Olive Garden and sat there texting all of our friends to let them know we were engaged and kept calling people for a while after dinner as well. We went back to her house and stopped by to show her grandma the ring. It all came off without a hitch. Audrey said yes as I expected her to and we were engaged! We are getting married June 4^th in 2 months! I couldn’t be happier, I love her and can’t wait to marry her!

Click here to read my story of how it happened. 

The Proposal- Andrew's Story Part One

Here is Andrew's story of the proposal. I have been asking him for a month and he finally gave it to me! Once I got it I can see why it took him some time. It was long! Six pages! I've done some simplifying, and some with my own words. But the main part of it all, are his words. If it doesn't flow right, that's my lack of editing skills, not his lack of effective writing.

Here's how it happened from Andrew's point of view:

I knew it was coming sometime soon. We had been getting closer and closer to one another over the past few months. We were continuing to make the most of our long distance relationship. The first time we talked about marriage it was the beginning of December and I was up in Logan visiting Audrey. We were just talking in her apartment and then it slowly led to talking about our relationship. We talked about the love that we had for one another and how we wanted to be together forever. That conversation led to several other smaller conversations about future plans together, but still nothing serious about actually getting married and when that would happen.

First Time Ring Shopping

On Christmas night, Audrey and I were talking. As we were talking it led to marriage and we started tossing dates around and talking about when would be best. The next day was Saturday and we went ring shopping for the first time. We were both nervous and worried that someone might see us when
we didn't want anyone knowing about it yet.

In the meantime, we needed to tell our parents that we were planning to get married. I told my parents while we were sitting at home. They didn't seem too overly surprised when I filled them in on everything. They were more surprised that we had been out ring shopping already.

I bought the ring on January 11th and I went over to her parent's house on the 13th to ask him about marrying Audrey. We ended up having a good conversation together talking about Audrey, both of our qualities, our plans, etc.

Ring, check. Ask her parents, check. Now I had to propose. All along, I was planning to propose on February 12^th, the one-year anniversary of our first date. But now that I was in the clear and had the go ahead to do it, I thought why should I wait? I guessed that Audrey was probably expecting it on that date, so if I did a different day it would be much more of a surprise. I had told her parents that I already had the ring and was thinking about proposing just a few days later that weekend. 

It was proposal planning time. I had no idea what to do or how to propose to her. I wanted to make it something that would be special, secluded with few people around, and something that she would not see coming from a mile away. I started brainstorming with my sister Amy and my parents. We thought of going up to the Scheel’s sports store and proposing on the Ferris Wheel there. I didn’t like that as it was long drive, not good for pictures, and people around. We threw around a few other ideas, but none of them seemed right.

Then, Thursday night Amy came up with the idea of doing it in my aunt and uncle, Nancy and Gifford’s, backyard. They live in South Orem on a hill that overlooks Provo. At the back corner of the yard, they have a little strip of land that goes down the side of the hill to a little patio that overlooks more of the city and the Provo Temple. At first I wasn’t sure, but the more I thought about it, the more I really liked the idea. My mom called and talked to Nancy about it and I got the go ahead to do it. 

Audrey’s mom called me to let me know that she had been talking with Audrey, and Audrey was sure that I was not going to propose until February 12^th. She had no idea that I had bought the ring and was not expecting it so immediately. Pulling it all together was pretty easy. I didn’t have work on Friday, so I called my friend Jason and he was the first friend to find out that I was going to propose. When I told him over the phone he yelled and yelled in excitement. I asked if he could do me a favor and help me get some really nice flowers for the proposal. He was thrilled and not only said of course he’d help with the flowers, but he also wanted to help set it all up and make it nice. 

And there's more! And this story is to be continued :) 

Click here for part 2
Click here for my story

Engagements

We did our engagements this past weekend! For all that previous week the weather forecast was rain for Saturday. We were praying that the weather would cooperate with us and our prayers were answered! We were just finishing up at our first location and it started to sprinkle. We were driving down to our 2nd location and it started to downpour! That made us really worried because if it stayed like that then we would need to postpone our pictures to next weekend. We got to the lake and it was dry. There had been no rain there all day! 

We had a great time! I think our photogropher thinks we're dorks, That's fine. We are. In fact we had so much fun on Saturday that Andrew and I went out the next day and took more. In other words, it got darker earlier than expected on Saturday and we missed a few spots at the lake we wanted, so we went back. 

And I can't help looking at our pictures! I can't wait till our actual ones are finished so we can see them! I think I got quite the handsome man! The pictures below are some of the ones we took on Sunday. All done by Andrew, his camera, and his tripod.