To our dear friends & loved ones,

They say that the third time’s the charm… After much anticipation, we are finally getting our favorite people together to celebrate our marriage! While this past year has not been easy for many of us, we are thankful that God has used the challenges that came along with 2020 to bring us closer together as husband and wife than we ever would have been under normal circumstances. What God has brought together is worth celebrating, and we are looking forward to doing that with you on Thursday, September 2, 2021 (the Thursday before the Labor Day weekend).

In the meantime, please reach out to us with any questions, or just to check in and say hi. We hope you are all staying happy and healthy, and look forward to seeing you soon!

Love,

Patrick & Amanda

We got married on April 25th, 2020. As you all may remember, we were in the early days of the pandemic and near the beginning of the lockdowns. It was an uncertain and scary time when toilet paper was worth its weight in gold and seeing empty grocery store shelves was normal. Patrick had moved into our apartment here in Houston at the beginning of the month, and with the stay at home orders I was coming to work at the apartment every day and going back to my place for the night. We quickly decided that this was silly, and with no end in sight on the lockdowns, we decided to get married a month earlier than originally planned.

Due to the circumstances, we got married in our apartment living room in The Heights, with our pastor and immediate families on Zoom. This was far from the beautiful day that we had planned, but Patrick went above & beyond to make it a special one. Following the wedding, we had a "honeymoon around the world" - which consisted of ordering food from a new country each day and enjoying it at home. We "visited" Mexico, France, Italy, Greece, India, & Japan.

While there has been much mourning of not being able to be physically present with our families and friends for this important moment in our lives, we have seen the Lord use it for His good. "And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" Romans 8:28. Through the stress & heartache, the Lord has brought forth a deeper level of trust, honesty, and intimacy in our marriage than we would have had if we had our dream day then jetted off to Maui. Watching Him bring beauty from ashes has been a joy for both of us over the last year.

We worked from home together for probably the first six months of our marriage, and it was the best. Considering that it was very possible that Patrick would have traveled three nights a week in normal circumstances - this was an unexpected blessing from the pandemic. Throughout the year, we took a trip to Tahoe with friends, stayed in a tiny home, got more involved in our church, found an incredible community here in Houston, survived snowpocalyse, and learned so much about what it looks like to live as husband & wife. Marriage is the best.

While the Lord has used our wedding immensely for our good, we are so ready to have a proper celebration of what the Lord has brought together and look forward to Thursday, September 2, 2021 with much anticipation.

After having set the bar so low when we first met, once I decided it was time to propose I quickly realized that no matter what I chose to do for the proposal, I would undoubtedly be considered incredibly thoughtful purely by merit of contrast. Liberated from self-doubt in this reality, I quickly got to work planning the most relatively thoughtful proposal ever.


Most of Amanda and I's 3 year relationship developed in the promised land (a.k.a. College Station, TX), where we spent many days and nights wandering around A&M's be(ige)autiful campus, watching the sunset out at Lake Bryan, making sushi runs to HEB, and other such uber-romantic activities. It felt like a no-brainer to take her back to the place where it all began to pop the question.


After her family provided a VERY convenient excuse to go to College Station during the last weekend in August, I had a date set and a proposal to plan. I wanted to show her how much I cherished the years we spent together in College Station, so I thought it might be super to recreate the first three dates we went on together as one mega date - an outing I later affectionately named "super-mega date." The dates went as follows:


ORIGINALS:


Date 1 - Bahama Bucks: We drove separate cars to Bahama Bucks to "catch up on the summer" and hang out and stuff. Super casual. Playin' it cool. She probably picked something wayyyyy better than me (as usual), but we didn't share things at that point, so I wouldn't have known. This was where I said aforementioned Ben Stuart quotes which actually worked somehow because I got a second date out of it.


Date 2 - First Friday: Amanda and I went to First Friday in downtown Bryan, a monthly event with live street music, businesses open late, and good food. I took her to a music shop and taught her to play Smoke on the Water to break the ice (she loved that, just ask her), we got some Italian food at Caffe Capri (after waiting 20 minutes for our reservation... like, what's the point of a reservation?!?), we made fun of art, and then ate cheesecake on a bench covered in bird poop (unbeknownst before I sat down).


Date 3 - Lake Bryan: We packed a cooler full of sandwich things and headed out to Lake Bryan for a picnic (because ain't no sappy like P. Saul sappy). After helping a large contingency of foreigners take a group picture, we proceeded to combine said sandwich things together and then eat them as the sun went down. Then, I shared shared my heart-feelings about Amanda and asked if she had similar heart-feelings. She did, so we officially became a couple (though not FB official, baby steps), and laid in the grass watching the stars until Lake Bryan closed (whoops). Then we freaked out for about 15 minutes and considered calling the cops (or a roommate, one of the two) until suddenly a bright light appeared at the end of the street heading from the direction of the gate. This was either divine intervention freeing us from bondage or someone who worked the campsite driving a PT Cruiser. Some say it was both.


SUPER-MEGA:


Date 1 - Bahama Bucks: We drove together to a secret mystery location (it was Bahama Bucks) to reminisce on the first time we ever went out together (awwww). Amanda ordered something wayyyyyy better than me, but it was okay because I just ate hers instead.



Date 2 - Last Friday(?): On the last Friday of the month (close enough) I took her back to the music shop because she loved it so much and made her play Smoke on the Water again. We then took our melted faces to Caffe Capri and sat in the same booth as we did the first time around (not planned, but I'll pretend it was). We did not make fun of art, and avoided bird poop on all surfaces. There was also much reminiscing about our original date to First Friday.



Date 3 - Lake Bryan: We did not pack a cooler of sandwich things, but I had a secret gift (the one ring) that I told her I would give her at the next stop on our super-mega date. As we drove towards Lake Bryan, it started to rain. This was troubling as I did not have a plan B for what was to follow. We arrived at Lake Bryan, and did not take pictures of any foreigners. It had stopped raining, so I took her by the hand and walked her out to the spot where we first shared heart-feelings 3 years prior, sharing even deeper heart-feelings about all the things I love about her, and all the ways I see in her the character traits I want in my wife. There was already a picnic setup there waiting for us (shoutout Matt and Kailin Meyer), where I dropped on one knee, opened up the "secret gift", and asked her if she would join me on this crazy adventure we call life forever. She said yes, and now I get to marry the girl of my dreams. Plus, we had a rainbow. It was perfection. God is good.
Thanks for listening to our crazy story. We hope you'll be able to celebrate it and many more crazy stories to come on our big day in May!

Patrick & I were both in the Business Honors program at Texas A&M. I was a late admit to the program, and was still trying to get my bearings and make new friends. In the fall semester of our sophomore year, we both had the same Business Law professor at different times, and she required that students go to her to her office hours to review exams. I was sitting in the 340 Suite in the business school reviewing my exam with a friend when I saw Patrick across the room. He looked familiar and appeared to be reviewing the same exam, so I was considering introducing myself to him just to have another connection in the program. He must have caught me looking at him, because he quickly walked over and confidently introduced himself to me saying, "Hi, I'm Will." The friend who he was with, who was in fact Will, went along with it and introduced himself as Patrick. We had a brief conversation, and then they both left - neither one of them correcting the initial introduction.

Fast forward to the spring semester - Patrick & I have not talked again, and I am still under the impression that his name is Will. We had a management class together that semester, and when I walked in on the first day he was talking with one of my friends. I went to join in on the conversation, and he turned to me, did not recall ever meeting me, and introduced himself as Patrick. To which I responded, "No, your name is Will." After a brief moment of confusion, I reminded him of the interaction we had the previous semester and he politely pretended to remember. We then sat down and the professor had us play a get-to-know-you game that involved calling people by name and passing them a beach ball covered in questions. I heavily flirted with Patrick by emphasizing his name when I passed him the ball - but it took him another semester to pick up on the hint.

I studied abroad the summer between sophomore & junior year and Patrick interned at Dell. We have admitted to each other now that we had the other person on our minds all summer, but we were both shocked by how quickly God brought us together. Patrick & I both attended Grace Bible Church in College Station and had both made the decision to step into leadership as Bible Study Leaders. We did not know this about each other because the church had several campuses, and he attended Southwood & I attended Anderson. So imagine my surprise when I walked into leadership retreat and the first person I saw was the guy I had been thinking about all summer. We had kind of a funny moment where we were both obviously surprised (and excited) to see each other. By the end of the retreat, Patrick had asked for my number and asked to get ice cream to hear about my summer - a bold move that paid off.

From there, we got ice cream and Patrick quoted Ben Stuart to me when describing the way he would like to pursue me (a very good sign that did not go unnoticed). We went on a few more dates, realized we really liked each other, and fell in love. And now, two people who's first interaction was premised on a lie, are getting married and could not be more excited about it.