Certified Coordinated Bride Christine
Journal Entry #1
Finally Ever After
Hi ladies (and gents)! My name is Christine. First and foremost, I would give all the glory to the Lord for our relationship and for all His love, grace and guidance through the ups and downs. We are ready to take the next step and honor God through our marriage. I am so thrilled for this opportunity to be a guest blogger for #thecoordinatedbride! I’ve always known that I wanted to share my wedding planning experience with the world ever since I was a pre-teen and this would be the perfect chance to do so.
Our Love Story:
Let’s take it back –all the way back- to 2009. I had just graduated high school and was on my way to college that fall. The college was two and a half hours away from home and I only knew about two people from my high school who were also attending the same college. It was a new, yet scary experience. I didn’t know anyone!
Unfortunately, I signed up for a 7AM gym class thinking as a college student, I’d have the energy for that. I was wrong, but this first bad decision ended up being the best decision I made. (Hint: I found the love of my life!) I remember on the first day of class, I was sitting in the back by myself paying attention to whatever the professor was saying, until my attention was taken away by this “tall, dark, and handsome” guy (yes, I literally said that in my head) with a blue hat and black gym shorts who walked in a half an hour late. My breath was taken away because I felt like I had not seen any good-looking guys around (lol). I had no idea who he was but I knew he would be mine *wink*. Since I am a generally shy person, I didn’t make any moves and a few weeks went by. Every time in class when we were in the circuit training room (mirrors all around), I was always watching him workout. Trust me; we all have to admit (including myself), I was being very weird and awkward! What can I say – the guy looked good and I’m pretty sure he was flexing just for me, lol! Since some time had passed in the class, it was required that we did a physical training performance test. And yup, you guessed it! I still hadn’t made any friends yet. I was sitting in the gymnasium pretzel style waiting for everyone to get their partners and I said in my head, “I’ll wait for the last person who doesn’t have a partner to be my partner”. As I was waiting and looking around, ‘that guy, Julian,’ came over to me. He was standing over me and I was just looking at him in awe *heart eyes*. He said, “What’s up? Want to be my gym partner?” I looked at him so confused and replied, “Me?!” He laughed and nodded. I was still in shock that this guy asked me… yes, ME… to be his gym partner. What can I say? It was love at first sight …for me, haha. I can’t say he thought the same, but I did win him over. After a few weeks, we went on our first date to Baskin Robbins and he held my hand as we walked there. Some additional time passed, and (finally) he poured out his heart to me and we made it official on November 4, 2009 as boyfriend and girlfriend. We dated throughout college and we graduated together in May 2013.
How He Proposed:
We had talked about rings, and how it would happen, but things just never go according to plan –in a good way, this time. Obviously, we all knew this day was coming. We had been together for almost 7 years. For our seventh-year anniversary, we planned an out-of-town, but close to home, staycation. My then-boyfriend told me that there was a church event happening and his family wanted us to attend on our actual anniversary date, which I was sort of suspicious about but let it go. A lot of people would get even more suspicious if their significant other got extra dressed up, but with us – there’s no such thing, so it was no surprise when he dressed the way he did. We got ready and went to pick up his cousin and his cousin’s wife. When we finally pulled up to the church, things got weird. The church lights were completely out, so I started questioning what was going on. His cousin started saying funny things to my then-boyfriend and he started to play “Queen” by Ne-Yo on his speakers. Who carries around their speakers with them? My fiancé, of course! We walk into the church and the lights come on and everyone yells, “SURPRISE!” I was literally in shock – what is everyone doing here? We walk in and he takes off his coat and I realize his buttons are in the wrong place and then gets on one knee… I was so distracted by all our friends and family waving and the loud music, that he had to remind me to focus on him, LOL. He asked me to marry him and of course, I said, “yes!” We were finally able to fix his jacket button, by the way. He had gotten the space decorated and catered by T-Cuisine (tcuisine1@yahoo.com). He put together a video montage of us (see below) with all our friends explaining what love is. The proposal was perfect. He had gotten all of our friends and family together. It was beautiful and my heart was full. I was finally his soon-to-be wife and we were surrounded with nothing but love and support. Full disclosure: it was totally awkward for me to be the center of attention, so I looked very awkward. But I am nothing less than happy because I get to spend forever with my best friend. Cheers to happily ever after!
Planning Process:
As any other Type-A personality, I have to make sure things go the way they should, so I have decided to plan my own wedding. This may change depending on how it goes! We did not start wedding planning immediately as we wanted to enjoy our engagement. At the time that I am writing this in 2017, we are a little more than a year before our wedding date, we are just getting started and so excited to share the process with you!
We have selected our date of November 3, 2018 (we would ideally like to have it on November 4, 2018, but we wanted to have a Saturday wedding), so we will now have an anniversary weekend instead! It did not take us long to pick our venue at all, and it was one of the first ones we visited. We will be celebrating our wedding at the Westin in Annapolis, MD. Neither of us are from Annapolis; we were going for a place that our family could also enjoy other than just for our wedding. Unfortunately, we have not selected a Church yet, but hope to find one soon. There are so many options and they are all beautiful.
Through my blogging networking, we worked with local photographer, Tenneal of in11views for our first set of engagement photos. -Not sure if we’re taking an additional set, but we are considering it, just for the memories- Also, since I am a custom stationery designer and calligrapher I have SO many ideas for our Save the Dates and Invitations! We are now in process of selecting our wedding party and doing our “proposals” to our friends and family.
Meanwhile – our wedding is the in the fall, we have also selected our wedding colors. They will consist of: romantic dark reds and burgundy, champagne with a splash of gold, and a hint of black. I have my wedding planner ready, in-hand (yes! An actual planner for planning a wedding!) and I can’t wait to share it all!
Talk soon!
XO,
Christine Nguyen (@misschriscash) #tyingtheknotwithascott
