becoming lawrence

Almost eight years ago, I was crushed by a summer fling that went south and Matt had just moved to Jacksonville to hit up the beach bars and live the single life. We both ended up on match.com. I was looking for distractions (DON'T TEXT HIM DON'T TEXT HIM DON'T TEXT HIM!!) and he was scoping out the ladies.

I 'winked' at him first, because hello 6'5" and beautiful, and we messaged back and forth for a few days until finally going on our first date. September 8, 2011 at Urban Flats. I literally couldn't tell you one thing we talked about... but I can share a random stream of consciousness that I'll never forget:

Actually got out of his car and knocked on my door.

SO. TALL.

SO. BEAUTIFUL.

Opened my car door.

U-turn.

Opened my car door again.

Yuenglings.

Napkin stuck to beer bottle.

Case of the giggles.

Tim Tebow.

I don't know what he's saying because all I can think about is how much he looks like Tim Tebow.

FOCUS.

Tim Tebow.

Opens my car door again.

Walks me to my door.

Kisses me on the cheek.

I want to see him again.

I did see him again, pretty much every. single. day. after this. We would text each other and say "too soon??" and were back together within hours. 90% of our dates consisted of holding hands at Publix (shoutout to the Marsh Landing location - forever our fav!!) to pick out dinner and binge watching Mad Men while snuggled up on couch. We were Facebook Official by September 24th.

Three whole months later, Matt moved into my apartment! I remember being kind of terrified to tell my mom and making her sit down with a glass of wine before finally having the guts to spill the beans (mad props to Colton for asking four dads for their blessing to *maybe* marry their daughters after five seconds of dating #thebachelor #teamcassie)!!

After two years of dating, Matt proposed. He told me get dressed in something cute and get in the car, without telling me where we were going. The only clue I could have, was that "he learned something new and wanted to show me what he learned". Heading south on A1A, I was totally confused. Painting with a twist? Flying a kite on the beach? Remote control car in the sand? Don't ask me why, these were literally the only things I could think of.

We pulled off into a parking lot in Ponte Vedra, he grabbed a black duffle bag out of the trunk, and told me to wait in the car for ten minutes. After ten minutes, I could walk over to the beach, turn right, and come meet him. LONGEST. TEN. MINUTES. OF. MY. LIFE.

When time was up and I was allowed to come find him, he was sitting on a blanket in the sand waiting for me with a ukulele. For those of you who don't know - Matt has the most beautiful, velvety smooth voice on the planet and had 5 minutes of fame on American Idol (YES, that's the link to the YouTube video!! Skip to 1:47 for Matt!). He learned how to play Jack Johnson's "Angel" on the ukulele and sang it to me. I got a huge lump in my throat and felt the tears coming, until I thought, "he's totally not proposing... he's going to sing this beautiful song... and my hopes are going to be up... and then it will be over and we'll walk back to the car and go to dinner". I was so convinced he wasn't proposing, that I was COMPLETELY SHOCKED and caught off guard when he got down on one knee with a ring. If you've hung on this long - the video of the proposal is below - and you can watch me say OMG OMG OMG on repeat, ha!

A year and a half later, on March 14, 2015, I married my dreamboat of a husband and we are currently living our happily ever after with two sweet baby boys. Now keep scrolling and enjoy a snapshot into our relationship and a bunch of pretty pictures by Tonya Beaver, our amazing engagement/wedding photographer who inspired me to become a photographer in the first place!!!

THE PROPOSAL VIDEO!!!!