November 23, 2007: We're Engaged!

Jason and I went to Kansas City to visit my family for Thanksgiving. We had been talking about the possibility of getting married, and I was really hoping to someday be married in my brother's church in Liberty, Missouri. The church is beautiful, built in the 1800s, and the perfect setting for a wedding. While we were staying at my brother's house that weekend, all of us girls decided it would be fun to go look at the church, "just to see," with an eye for a "someday" wedding there. Little did I know that Jason had been working behind the scenes with all of my siblings for weeks to set up a perfect surprise...

The morning after Thanksgiving, my sister, my sister-in-law and I set out to the church, which was just around the corner. We chit-chatted all the way there, and went in through a back door that led us into the fellowship hall on the lower level of the church. I noticed a candle burning on a table when we walked in, which I thought was a little odd, but just continued looking around the fellowship hall to see what we would have to work with. It wasn't until my sister stepped in front of me and whipped out her camera that I took a second look at the table with the burning candle, and I then noticed a large sign that said, "Betsy, Welcome to Our Story..." On the table with the candle was a large hand-printed card that read "When We Met..." This was the first of four cards I would find, taking me on a narrative journey through pivotal moments in our relationship. Each was set up like the first, with a candle, leading me to through the church, and through a beautiful archway, to the exterior doors of the sanctuary where I found the last card titled "When He Proposed..." This card talked about a love story that would continue forever, and invited me to enter the doors of the sanctuary to see what would happen next. When I walked through the doors, I was in the back of the sanctuary, looking towards the altar, beautifully lit with candles, where Jason was waiting for me. I couldn't help but run down the aisle to him! At that altar, in the very place where we were united in marriage on March 8, 2008, Jason asked me to be his wife.