La Cita Golf & Country Club

Wedding Day

Wedding

Reception

Our Wedding

About 3 weeks after the Christmas/New Years shuffle I received a message from Anthony. His picture caught my eye first, with a huge smile and a sparkle in his eyes (perhaps a bit mischief). After a few days of talking on the phone, and me doing the "are you a serial killer" test, we agreed to meet. Getting ready for the date I&nbsp;was a ball of nerves. It took me over and hour to get ready trying on multiple outfits, and doing the catwalk for 2 of my friends for their approval.&nbsp;

I arrived first and sat outside the restaurant waiting for him. I watched him in what felt like slow motion walk up to me and introduce himself. It was completely surreal. We sat down and started joking with each other, insert dinosaur joke here. It was so easy and effortless. We found out it was going to be an hour wait, so we went to walk around a sketchy fair (it's was so cold and no one was there except the fair workers)&nbsp;behind the restaurant. I was enamored with his sense of humor. Finally our table was ready and we enjoyed an awesome dinner and more laughs. Our conversation flowed so easily, it was like we had known each other for much longer than just a week. We were so into us that we didn't even realize that we were the only people left in the restaurant.&nbsp;

We were connecting so well that we continued talking outside, 10 minutes turned into 2 hours and the temperature continuously dropped. We sat in his car until 4 in the morning, talking and laughing, knowing we were exhausted but didn't want to leave. I finally had to call it, because I was falling asleep in his car. He walked me to my car and gave me a hug and in true Amanda fashion I blurted out "are you gonna kiss me?" He took the hint and gave me a kiss for the records. They talk about shooting stars and foot pop and all of the butterfly stuff, and oh man did I have it.&nbsp;

It was one the best last first dates I've ever been on.

The beginning of us!

My little brother was graduating from college and getting married within the same couple of weeks, so my mind was totally fixated on celebrating with him and the family and then going on "Dan and Kelsey's wedding cruise." I was just in a go go go mindset.May 4th, Anthony and I went to Tampa to see my brother get his college degree (so proud). His fiance had an after party for him, where we hung out with friends and family! We decided to stay the night in the Tampa, so we could do something fun the next day.&nbsp;May 5th, we got up and got ready, I repacked our bag (turned out he had the ring in his pocket in the bag the whole time) and set off on our adventure. First we got breakfast and then headed to The Florida Aquarium. We walked around the whole place, dazzled by all the different sea life, I loved the dark room with the big aquarium with the different types of fish and sharks. We sat there for 15 mins or so, Anthony will tell you he was going to propose there, but there was too many people. We decided to check out the different areas and went upstairs to see the lemurs, passing really nice pallets filled with flowers.&nbsp;After the lemurs, we went back to the passway with the flowers and I kept talking to him about how we should do something like this and how I saw it on HGTV blah blah, I turned around and he looked panicked (come to find out, he had already gotten down on his knee, but I turned around too fast) I walked over to another set of flowers and was gushing about those and I heard "babe", "honey turn around". When I did he was there on his knee with the ring box open. I automatically started crying and told him repeatedly to get up and shut up. He said "is that a yes?" I continued crying and shook my head yes, and said, "yes, yes, yes." He then slipped a beautiful ring on my finger!&nbsp;And the planning began.....

Amanda & Anthony

Amanda & Anthony

Photos