A weeklong bike trip, a Christmas drawing, and a Florida vacation—Abby and Bryson’s story spans many states and many months.
Give us the details! When? Where? How?
It started at Christmas. Bryson had drawn this really cute picture depicting that one of my remaining gifts was a trip to Florida! He knows how cranky I get when the winter drags on so he wanted to take me somewhere warm. He had tricked me a month prior telling me to get off work because he had friends coming in from out of town and he wanted us to show them around. At this point I’m really not thinking anything about a proposal and just was looking forward to our trip.
February arrives and we head to Florida. The first day we just settled in and relaxed and the second day was when he proposed! We had plans to go to the beach, but Bryson was being tricky again and surprised me by taking us to a landing strip. He tried to play it off the whole time by saying, “This doesn’t look like the beach,” but at this point I knew something was up. We went up in the plane and it was great! He and I had both never done that before so it was special.
Marriage is primarily about the life you’re building with your partner. And while the wedding day is fun and exciting the focus should be on the long term joy you’re building in your marriage.
After that we ended up making it to the beach and went on a run and then just relaxed around the time the sun was setting. I told him I was getting cold so he went to the car to get my sweatshirt — and the ring, but I didn’t know it! He asked me if we could go closer to the water and if he could ask me some questions. Bryson’s a pretty emotionally connected guy so I’m used to him trying to ask me deep questions (and I’m usually joking around when he’s trying to be serious) so at this point I’m still not catching on and wasn’t expecting any proposal.
He asked me questions that made me feel so honored about what he wanted for our life and then it finally hit me what was going on. He ended with asking me to be his wife! I was confused at first and said something like, “Are you really asking me to marry you?”…and then said yes! We took some pictures (not too glamorous ones) but I liked it that way because it was just natural pictures of us. We capped it off by going to a nice dinner to celebrate.
What has been your favorite experience planning the wedding?
Working alongside people we love.
How do you stay sane under the pressures of wedding planning?
Take it one day at a time and maintain healthy expectations.
At Joy we believe that even though a wedding lasts a day, joy should last forever. What does that mean to you?
Marriage is primarily about the life you’re building with your partner. And while the wedding day is fun and exciting the focus should be on the long term joy you’re building in your marriage.
