Citylight Church West Location

Wedding Day

Wedding

Livestock Exchange Building

Reception

Our Wedding

I first&nbsp;met Elisha my freshman year&nbsp;at Concordia University, Nebraska through a mutual friend of ours during Freshman Launch Weekend. My roommate&nbsp;and her&nbsp;knew each other through summer choir and even after he introduced us, I tried to set them up together instead. The moment that I saw Elisha I knew there was something familiar about her; her striking&nbsp;smile, her beautiful steel blue eyes, and her kind and loving personality were all things about her that I thought were so familiar to me.&nbsp;It was like I had met her before but even to this day, I still have no idea where our paths would have crossed before college. It was like she was divinely-sent into my life.&nbsp;

We became acquaintances and made small talk here and there every so often during the rest of the year. I grew to develop a crush on Elisha throughout&nbsp;freshman year but I put the crush aside because I could never believe that someone as beautiful as her would ever consider dating a guy like me.&nbsp;



&nbsp; So, during our first and second years of college, we were both on separate paths through life. We were both in relationships with other people at this point and really only&nbsp;saw each other in passing, for example:&nbsp;dining hours or in the dorm lounges during late-night study sessions. I was not in a great place to talk to her and get to know her because the timing in our lives was never right.&nbsp;&nbsp;As sophomore year came to a close, I had become a recent single man but a lost man. I had lost my way in my faith due the unhealthiness of my previous relationship. I decided to take a summer to work on myself and rebuild my faith in Jesus Christ. It wasn't until mid-July that God put on my heart to try again with dating and instead of trying to find someone of my own this time, I let God do it for me. Elisha was the first girl to pop into my head and I had this sense that I needed to get to know her some more.&nbsp;We started talking&nbsp;over the phone through text messages over the rest of the summer until one day, Elisha sent me a message&nbsp;telling me that she was developing feelings towards me but that she wasn't ready to date anyone again until she was close in her relationship with the Lord again. (Turns out she and I were in very similar stages in our lives with our faiths and relationships with the Lord.) I respected her reasoning and told her that I was going to be&nbsp;here for her until she was ready&nbsp;and that I would support her no matter what.&nbsp;As the summer came to a close we had become very close as friends.&nbsp;When we got back to school for our junior year&nbsp;in August of 2016, that's when we were able to actually talk to each other in person and spend time with one another within groups of people. On the second night of school, we decided to take a walk around campus and we talked for hours about life, faith, our families, what we wanted to do after we graduated, and many other things. After hearing and listening to all these things that she had to tell me about, I felt an even stronger connection with&nbsp;Elisha.&nbsp;When we arrived back to her dorm at Jonathon Hall, I had told her that I was a magician and asked if she wanted to see a magic trick. She said yes and I was able to shock her with two of my best magic tricks that I had on me at the time.&nbsp;&nbsp;After the last trick, I told her that I still really liked her and wanted her to know that I&nbsp;am here for support in her faith growth with Jesus, (because faith and our devotion to Jesus&nbsp;was the most important thing that I wanted to have in our relationship), but I also went on to ask her if she wanted to be my girlfriend after that night.&nbsp;&nbsp;At 12:03 a.m.&nbsp;of August 24th, 2016 our relationship began.









~~TWO&nbsp;YEARS&nbsp;LATER~~









Elisha and I had been dating each other for not even&nbsp;a month before I knew that she was "the one." I knew that I was in love with from the start and I knew that I never wanted to&nbsp;stop fighting for her and pursue&nbsp;her for the rest of my life.&nbsp;&nbsp;Even though I had been thinking about&nbsp;my proposal to her for years, I had started the planning process over Spring Break of 2018.









 While Elisha was off on A' Capella choir tour, I was out searching for the perfect engagement ring. I remembered that Elisha was not a "diamond ring" girl so I was looking for a ring with a sapphire stone and I found the perfect one. The rest of the proposal was planned during the summer while I was away in Indiana for my summer internship. After visiting one of the state parks, I had an idea to propose to Elisha at Falls Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota because this was where we had our first road trip with each other and it is one of our favorite places to visit.&nbsp;









As soon as I moved back home for my last semester of school, I bought the ring and&nbsp;I nervously asked her parents for her hand in marriage which they were more than happy to give to me. A couple weeks went by and&nbsp;&nbsp;I secretly planted in Elisha's mind to take a road trip to Sioux Falls again (though Elisha will say that she knew the entire time what I had been planning). The plans were assembled and we drove to Sioux Falls on a Saturday in October along with her brother, Alexander,&nbsp;his wife, Melanie, and their friend.







The entire car ride there was nerve-racking to say the least. I was jittery and quiet for most of the trip because I was just so excited to get to the falls and propose. I could feel Elisha was suspicious of me&nbsp;as soon as our conversations died down and the car ride became silent. As a bit of cover, I brought my backpack along&nbsp;to store the ring and to say that "I had to do my Greek language homework." I tried to keep my mind off of my nerves by actually doing some homework but I can neither confirm or deny that it helped.







As soon as we arrived to Sioux Falls we had planned to visit a local coffee shop and cafe called&nbsp;Josiah's, to eat lunch and enjoy some time together before we went off to the falls. I could barely eat...my thoughts were racing saying:&nbsp;"my life is going to change after this day!" When lunch was finished and everyone was ready to go, we all hopped in our cars and drove to Falls Park. After we arrived to the park, we all walked around to gaze&nbsp;at the beautiful landscape and took plenty of pictures which led to Elisha getting a little annoyed because of how many pictures were being taken.&nbsp;





In that moment, I prayed a short prayer to God, asking him to show me some kind of sign that this was the place that I was to propose. At an instant the clouds parted to give way for the shining sun to break through and shine upon the place where we were standing. Right then, I&nbsp;knew that it was time and Elisha was ready to walk away from the spot but I&nbsp;grabbed her hand and poured my heart out for her. I will never forget her face as if it was branded into my memory when I dropped to one knee and pulled out the ring! She said yes!





We were engaged on October 13, 2018.









Throughout&nbsp;our relationship together,&nbsp;Elisha and I have shared a "whole latte" (a lot) together from all of the hilarious inside jokes between us, to all the time&nbsp;we've spent getting to know each other's families and friends, to the many miles we've had to drive to see each other, and to all the times where we shared&nbsp;breakfast times during school with me in my "zombie state" (I am not a morning person). From the "Good Morning" and&nbsp;"Goodnight" messages, to all of the times we've spent laughing our butts off at each other or something we were watching (all of the&nbsp;Friends&nbsp;and&nbsp;Brooklyn Nine-Nine&nbsp;episodes), and to all the moments&nbsp;where we have seen Jesus revealed in our relationship which&nbsp;has&nbsp;grown&nbsp;our faith with one another.









 There are so many countless moments of our relationship that I could have listed and through the time that we have shared, I wouldn't trade them for the world.&nbsp;I know that nothing will compare to the&nbsp;many&nbsp;things that&nbsp;we will experience and the&nbsp;countless amounts of&nbsp;memories that we get to share&nbsp;with each other in our future marriage.





I&nbsp;cannot wait to be married to my best friend and my soulmate for the rest of my life! I am so happy that the Lord brought you into my life.





&nbsp;I love you, Elisha Anne.

Groom Story

&nbsp;Once Upon a Time, as most fairy tales start, a girl met a boy on the first day of college.&nbsp; Her name was Elisha and she was from the same small town where she went to college. His name was Thaddaeus and he was living with one of her high school friends, Braxton, who she had met through summer chamber choir. Okay, I'm gonna stop with the third person perspective here because it's annoying me.&nbsp;:P&nbsp;

 

Braxton introduced us at the football scrimmage during Launch weekend, because it just so happened that we all belonged to brother/sister halls and had to sit by each other there. I&nbsp;immediately had the feeling that I had seen Thad somewhere before, and so after making polite small talk for a couple minutes, I stopped him and said something along the lines of,&nbsp;"Okay, this might be&nbsp;weird, but I seriously&nbsp;feel like I've met you somewhere before and I've been sitting here trying to figure out where it could have been."&nbsp;I was sure that I had just weirded him out and this would be the last time we ever spoke because he was looking at me with a confused look on his face the whole time, but as soon as I finished, his face came alive and he said, "No way me too! I've been sitting here trying to figure it out too!"

 

And that was it, we spent the next hour or so talking and listing everything we'd ever done, or every place we'd ever been trying to find something that crossed over. But we never did, and sitting here almost 5 years later, we still haven't figured it out.&nbsp;

 

Cheesy alert: I don't normally like to talk about really mushy relationship things cause they kinda make me gag, but this is something I have to mention because it's one of the reasons that I am convinced that God brought us together. You see, in high school I found&nbsp;this quote&nbsp;that said, ‘And then my soul saw you and it kind of went, "Oh, there you are, I've been looking for you." ' and I always believed that that is what God-ordained love is like. I believe in soulmates in the sense that&nbsp;God puts the people and experiences into&nbsp;our spouses’ lives to prepare them to deal with us-something my dad always told me growing up. When I was younger, I would always ask my parents how they knew that each other were the ones, and they both said, "You'll just know."&nbsp;

 

I never understood any of that until that moment in the bleachers with Thad. After talking to him for just a few minutes, I kind of&nbsp;knew we would never find any time that our paths had crossed. I&nbsp;wouldn't say that I had feelings for him at that point, but I did enjoy talking to him.&nbsp;

 

And, since we were both dating other people at that point,&nbsp;that's all it was for the next 2 years, a very casual friendship. We would say hi when our paths crossed and&nbsp;occasionally our friend groups overlapped for lunch or a late-night game session, all the time still throwing out suggestions for where we could have met.&nbsp;

 

He was always really sweet and seemed to always know when I needed a word of encouragement. One of my favorite memories of this was during sophomore year,&nbsp;about a week&nbsp;after I had broken up with my boyfriend, I had that day where I wanted to look really nice to pull myself out of the post-breakup blues (and also to make the ex&nbsp;a little jealous of course&nbsp;:P). I was making my way across campus to my first&nbsp;class and I got a snapchat message from Thad:&nbsp;"Hey, just wanted to say that you look really nice today!"&nbsp;

 

I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot and smiled as I looked up to find him in the top floor of Janzow (the campus center)&nbsp;looking out the window.&nbsp;He waved, and I waved, and I sent back, “Thanks, I needed that!” And that was really it until the following summer.&nbsp;My roommates Ann and Andrea (see bridesmaid list :P) and I decided we needed a girls’ weekend away, so we planned a long weekend in Kansas City a couple of weeks before Junior year started. That whole summer I had noticed that Thad had gradually started to become really intentional with asking me questions about myself-my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, family, childhood, future plans and dreams. I was really enjoying getting to know him, because I had always thought he was fun to talk to, but I didn’t really think anything more of it because I was actively not looking for a relationship. I had decided that I was done dating in college because I was tired of giving so much of my heart and soul to relationships and then having them crash and leaving me with nothing and feeling like the guys walked away unscathed. I had also noticed my personal walk with Christ had suffered quite a bit during the last relationship, because I had devoted so much time and effort to trying to save a doomed relationship that I wanted to step back from the dating world to repair that. (This is actually important to the story, not just an anti-dating-in-college rant :P) 

 

Anyways, back to the story. So, it was this mindset that allowed me to ignore the warmth I felt in my chest every time Thad’s name popped up on my phone, the gentle smile that took over my lips when he asked me about my family, and the snort-laugh that escaped my nose when he told me about all the pranks his brothers pulled on him growing up. 

 

But that didn’t stop Ann and Andrea noticing all of those things while we were in Kansas City, and I suppose it’s them I have to thank for not missing out on my future husband. So, after the realization that I was falling for this boy hit me I took about a half a day to reevaluate my thoughts toward relationships, and that night I sent him a novel via text about how I didn’t know how he was gonna take this but that I needed to tell him that I realized I had started to have feelings for him that I wasn’t ready for and I didn’t know how he felt and I didn't&nbsp;expect him to have feelings but that I needed to tell him that I wasn’t sure I was ready for a relationship because I was trying to fix some things inside myself and with God. It took him F O R E V E R to respond and all I could think was that I ruined everything and that I had probably read too much into his questions and he probably really didn’t have any feelings beyond friendship for me so I just ruined one of the best friendships I had for nothing, etc. etc. etc. 

 

It turns out he had fallen asleep... Typical, right? :P&nbsp;But&nbsp;when he responded I could have (and may have) cried because he said he did have feelings for me, but that he also understood the repair season I was in because he had been walking through one as well. That’s when I knew that he was a pretty special guy, he was willing to give me the time I needed to feel whole again before we decided what to do with our feelings for each other, taking the risk that at the end of it I might not have feelings for him at all.

 

I did :P The next few weeks passed with more questions interspersed with what we were individually learning in our daily devotional times and when we got back to school it only took a few days for him to ask me out (with a clever magic trick entitled, “The Magic in a Kiss”;P) and I happily said yes.

 

Two weeks in I knew that I loved him, but I didn’t tell him for a while :P Two months in I knew that he was the one, which honestly freaked me out so much I briefly felt like running, but I didn’t and I’m so glad I stayed because in a few short months I get to marry “the one whom my soul loves,”the one my Father made for me, my best friend :)

Y’all, if you aren’t married yet; marry your best friend, 10/10 would recommend ;P

Bride Story

Our Story

Details

Best Friend of the Bride since Day 1 of Kindergarten

Hannah Moody

Simon Ristow

James Ristow

Sister-in-law of the Bride (But really, she's the sister I've always wanted :) )

Melanie Scheiber

High School Best Friend of the Bride (another long-lost sister :P )

Kayleah Moravec

Older&nbsp;Brother&nbsp;of&nbsp;the Groom

(Andrew and I don't take many pictures together, I guess.)

Andrew Ristow

Nate Ristow

College Best Friend and Roommate (Long-Lost Sister #4)

Ann Spilker

College Best Friend and Roommate (Long-Lost Sister #5)

Andrea Wiese

Alexander Scheiber

College Roommate&nbsp;and Best Friend&nbsp;of&nbsp;the Groom.

Matthew Kortze

Bride's Barista Bestie from JD's Coffee Shop (and Long-Lost Sister #6)

Sarah Cabell

Nephew of the Groom&nbsp;(Super Ring Squad Member Number 2)

Victor Ristow

Nephew of the Groom&nbsp;(Super Ring Squad Member Number 1)

Casimir Ristow

Ryan Gilliand

Nathan Patron

Keegan Green

Daniel Spaulding

Bride's amazing cousin! And also we're basically sisters, our extended family frequently&nbsp;call us each others' names :P

Hannah Meyer

College Friend of the Bride and Groom (Thad's Attendant :P&nbsp;)

Zane Francescato

Wedding Party

Photos

Registry

Q + A

Use&nbsp;this&nbsp;link&nbsp;to&nbsp;reserve&nbsp;online:&nbsp;http://bit.ly/ScheiberRistowWedding **Rate&nbsp;available&nbsp;through&nbsp;September&nbsp;27,&nbsp;2019

Courtyard by Marriott Omaha Bellevue at Beardmore Event Center

**Rooms&nbsp;can&nbsp;be&nbsp;reserved&nbsp;at&nbsp;special&nbsp;rate&nbsp;through&nbsp;September&nbsp;24,&nbsp;2019

Elisha & Thaddaeus

Elisha & Thaddaeus

Photos