GUEST BRIDE BLOGGER Demonica {JE #1}

It’s been a little over a year since we first introduced you to one of our newest Guest Bride Bloggers, Demonica Jones. We featured her and Jared’s engagement shoot and love story back in June 2015. Today we are very excited to bring you Demonica’s first journal entry as a Guest Bride Blogger as she shares her journey to the altar on December 31, 2016.

Certified Coordinated Bride Demonica

Journal Entry #1

#CheersToTheFreakinWilliams

How we met:

Jared and I met almost 7 years ago in December of 2009 through his family and her friends. Jared played college basketball for North Carolina A&T and had a game against Northwestern in Chicago. After the game Jared went out with his family to a local pizzeria called Giordano’s, and a friend invited me. Initially he thought that I was his cousin. He has a huge family and he hasn’t met half of them so he treated me as such. Afterwards we went our separate ways and reconnected on Twitter. It was then that he found out we were not cousins, and that was the beginning of our long distance love affair.

The Proposal:

Jared proposed on September 21, 2014. It happened after church with the help of our Pastor, church members and friends. He knew I wanted our family to be there but he also knew if we were all together that would be a dead giveaway, so instead he had a friend live stream it via Ustream. He sent the link to our closest family and friends, which was a great way to include them since we all live so far away from one another.

The most memorable moment about the proposal for me was knowing that he purchased the ring several months before AND him being clever enough to ask a day after our anniversary. A little back-story…. after my mom passed away on Christmas of 2013 I retreated and pushed everyone away. I knew he wanted marriage but that was not my priority at the time. Grieving seemed to take up all of my headspace. Although I did not want to get married or even think about it Jared continued to take me ring shopping. Then one day I went into a store with a coworker and fell in love with a ring. I took down the specifics and gave the information to Jared. Little did I know he went back into the store the same week and purchased it. This was February 2014. My family and friends cannot keep a secret and people spilled the tea several times. I was ok knowing he had the ring, I just didn’t know when he would use it. When we would discuss marriage I told him I only had three requests for the proposal: I didn’t want it to happen on my birthday, a holiday, or our anniversary because it’s too cliché; a photographer needed to capture the moment; and our families needed to be included in some way. So he held on to the ring for 9 months to make sure I was in a better place, he proposed the day AFTER our anniversary, had 4 photographers and included our families via Ustream.

Long Distance Relationship:

Jared and I have been in a long distance relationship since the very beginning. He was in school in North Carolina and I was in school in Chicago. We should have way more frequent flyer miles than we do now! We began courting in 2009 and started the relationship 10 months later to be sure we really wanted to do a long distance relationship especially being so young and so far away. We had no clue what we really signed up for but God did. We dated for 4 years before he proposed. This year we’ll be celebrating our 6^th year anniversary and soon after replacing it with our forever anniversary.

Wedding Planning Process:

We started planning earlier than normal and expected. Because we are getting married on New Year’s Eve we wanted to book our big vendors right away. I have heard countless times you still have so much time but it does not feel that way. I’m glad we took care of bigger items when we did. Now I feel I can relax a bit. The planning process started off rough, as we had to fire our first wedding planner because she wasn’t a good fit. But our current planner is beyond amazing. She stepped in and immediately hit the ground running. Slowly but surely things are looking great and I can’t way for the day to unfold.