Jillian Lee Photography

It was the perfect day. The sun was out (finally a sunny wedding!) and the temperature was right around 70 degrees. I woke up in the town of Shelby, NC and fueled myself for what was ahead with a breakfast from IHOP. Just around the corner on a quiet street in this small town, Baird was enjoying the company of her bridesmaids and family as preparations for her wedding day took place. The day unfolded flawlessly as Baird and John committed their lives to each other under a canopy of trees. It wasn't hard to see that both of these people were so cherished by their families and communities and that the joining of them in marriage would only make those institutions flourish more. Weddings like this one make me so excited for my own!

The story starts back in June. Aaron was spending the night at my parent's house and I woke him up at 4:30a.m. for a surprise. It had been about a month of us being so in love and so I wanted to do something special for him. I blindfolded him and drove us down to Old Town Alexandria to watch the sunrise over the Potomac River. Because this had been such a special moment for us, when Aaron woke me up on Monday morning at around 5:15a.m. it didn't seem too crazy to me. He whispered that we were going on an adventure and so I sprang out of bed and got ready. Aaron then blindfolded me, and as we drove he played every single one of my favorite songs. I cried under my blindfold pretty much our entire drive. Once we got to Alexandria he took me down a dock (I was still blindfolded) and had set up a blanket for us to watch the sunrise. When he took my blindfold off I saw this...

(This is unedited, folks. And taken with my iPhone. It was seriously this beautiful.)

He then read to me a passage from the book Mere Christianity about falling in love and marriage. Honestly, I can barely remember what it said because it was then that it started dawning on me that this could be a marriage proposal! Turns out, it was. Aaron asked me to stand up and then he said a bunch of nice things to me that I also can't remember along with how much he loved me, right before he said, "and now I have a question for you." That was when he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him!! I think I said "shut up!" and then "YES!" and then I asked him to marry me too. He prayed for us and when I turned to look down the dock after we were finished I spotted a photographer who had been documenting it all! And not only that, but it was Brian Tropiano who I had second shot for a few times this summer, and whose work I absolutely adore. Aaron then informed me that he has brought an outfit for me to change into and that we were going to have an engagement shoot right then! I was amazed. We spent the rest of the day calling people and walking around Capitol Hill, which is where we eventually want to live. We prayed and dreamed as we walked around the adorable streets, and it was so amazing doing those things as an engaged couple. We had plans to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and when we arrived I was surprised by both of our families waiting for us there to celebrate. I cried again and felt so celebrated. I've never felt more loved in a single day. It was literally the best day of my entire life thus far. Everything about it was perfect and more than I could have dreamed of. Needless to say, I AM SO EXCITED TO MARRY AARON WISHART!