Ridge Pointe Events Venue

Rehearsal Dinner

Ridge Pointe

Wedding Day

Ceremony

Reception

Summer

Our Wedding

Timeline

Photos

Bridesmaids

Julia Kate Williams 

Abbey Smith

Ainsley Neil 

Cara Herring

Claire Congo 

Crawford McGuffee

Elizabeth Nist 

Ellie Sprayberry

Josie Bonamy

Libby Kate Deloney 

Mackenzie King 

Maggie May 

Makena Dempsey

Meg Walker 

Tempie Stoots 

Groomsmen

Scott Cornelius 

Braden Cornelius

Evan Radford 

Hunter Barton

Jack Hoppenjans 

Jackson Barton

Jackson Mackin

Jackson Sleeper 

Kyle Chastine 

Will Baker 

William Ydarraga

Xander Puliatti 

Bump Burgreen

Wedding Party

Q + A

Holiday Inn Express & Suites Talladega, an IHG Hotel

La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Chelsea

Hampton Inn & Suites Birmingham/280 East-Eagle Point

Pursell Farms

Travel

Things to Do

Registry

The Story of Us! 

<p>Our story begins in the summer of 2019 going into our junior year of high school. Like any other weekend at that time I was traveling for baseball and Mary Brook was going from gymnastics practice to the lake. While she and I had never really talked much, we had each other on snapchat and had started to message each other some more. Really I was trying to find excuses and reasons to talk to her. Eventually while I am sitting at dinner after a game I get a text from her asking about if I had figured out who I was going to homecoming with. I tell her no, that I haven’t, and then while I should be asking her if she knows who she's going with (and if she wants to go with me) I instead ask her why she's trying to figure out a homecoming date in the middle of July. So I lose chance #1. Great. A few weeks go by and we start to really talk more, I send her a picture of my new puppy I just got and ask her if she can help me come up with names for her. I’m thinking that the “using the dog to get girls” trick has to work right? Well I’m kind of right. Regardless of if it works or not, it gets me the chance to talk to her some more. Another week or two goes by and I get a call from a mutual friend who is telling me I need to take Mary Brook to homecoming or else. She says that we would be a great match and that we were similar and that maybe if I’m lucky she’d go out with me. Little did I know while I was trying to play it cool and not be too enthusiastic, MB is sitting in the car with four girls while I'm on speaker for everyone to hear. Well despite my best efforts I did not play it cool and about two weeks after that call I am walking up the driveway to take her out with my best friend and I. Here is the crazy part, I had never actually met her before despite us going to school together. So as I approach the door, sweating and panting from walking up her mountain of a driveway, who opens the door but her father, who’s hand I shake and introduce myself, followed by her mother, whos hand I snake and introduce myself, followed by her who I give one of the arguably most awkward hugs in the world to. I stand there and we all talk for a few minutes and it is painful, but I am saved by the bell when her parents ask me about baseball and I finally have something that I can easily talk about with them.So we talk for a few more minutes and then decide to leave. The night goes well and all is good. I drove home that night thinking about how amazing she was and how I wish I had done this whole asking her out thing sooner… maybe in the middle of July? Anyways we start dating a week later and go throughout the fall spending time together on the Friday and Saturday nights we can. We go to football games, homecoming, halloween parties, and make it to Christmas where we finally have some time we can actually spend together without school getting in the way. Our first Christmas is nothing but fun and filled with time spent together. Eventually we make our way back to school, but not for very long because by the first week of March, everything gets shut down because of a little thing we all call Covid. While I thought this was awful because it meant my baseball season was over, what I didn’t know was that over the next 6 months I would get to spend weeks and weeks of uninterrupted time with my girlfriend going on dates, going to the lake, hanging around at home, it was the never ending summer. Flash forward to senior year and we do everything we possibly can together. MB sits in my car with me every morning before school so we can spend some time together; I play a lot of music that she seems to not like even though years later it's all she will listen to. I get covid and miss school, she gets covid and misses Christmas, I play baseball and she does gymnastics, the year goes pretty normal given the circumstances. But now high school is over and we are facing our next challenge: going to different schools for college. While I am going to Jacksonville State to play baseball and maybe get a degree, MB is going to Auburn like her dad and brothers. I won’t lie to you, the end of that summer was rough. After covid and quarantine happened we saw each other more days a week than we didn’t. Now we are going to be two hours apart and only see each other on some weekends? And only talk to each other over the phone? This sucks. And I was right it did really suck at first. Eventually after a rough patch early on, all was well again. While long distance can bring out the worst in people in a relationship it can also bring out the best. We got to see what it was like to really make an effort with each other and to be intentional in the things that we did. While we were calling at night and hoping I could leave town early enough to get down for a gameday weekend, we were really setting the foundation for what the next couple years would look like for us. During the fall I came down as much as my coaches would let me, getting to come down for game days and to meet all of her new friends and do college together on the weekends. There were some interesting times with roommates and sleeping on my friends couches around Auburn and figuring out how to make it all work. It was amazing. It was nothing but fun every weekend I came down. Despite being at different schools it was exactly like we thought it would be. Then Christmas and the holidays came and we got to go back to seeing each other pretty much everyday again. This awesome period of being back home and going on dates and spending every waking moment together felt very short lived when we remembered we were only home for 40 days. We went back to school and then had to face our next challenge: a college baseball season. College baseball is the most fun I have ever had playing the game I have always loved. While it sucked at times, and really sucked at others, it was one of the greatest experiences I will ever have in my life and I am thankful for it. What college baseball doesn’t help is a long (or medium) distance relationship. As the season started I had less and less time to talk. On the road I would have basically no time at all to talk to MB. So while we just crushed the first semester of school and had so much fun all the time, we had no idea how hard losing our ability to communicate so much would mean to us, and how hard it would be for the next few months. Now don’t get me wrong, we had a lot of fun still during the season and got to spend time together still. Our deal was that while I came down more in the fall, she would have to come up to see me in the spring when I wasn’t able to travel. This worked great and we had so much fun there. I got to introduce her to life out in the country in Jacksonville and she got a taste of a different college experience than what she gets in the bubble that is Auburn. It was during this season of our lives together that I started really caring more about what she told me about God and I came to the decision to give my life to Christ. Not only was this a big decision for me but it was big for us because I knew one day I would have to lead our family towards Him, a task which always seemed somewhat daunting to me because I did not feel like I had a leg to stand on yet myself. Sophomore year goes very similarly to freshman year but get rid of any of the bad stuff and replace it with a whole lot more good. The fall is awesome once again with me coming down for games and weekends, and the spring goes well for me and great for her since she actually got to see me on the field a lot (something that didn’t happen much the season before). We had more fun this year now that we were established with our friends and routines and knew what to expect. This made the season a little better for MB and like I said, we had a great year. Now we are almost at the present, where up until this point of entering our junior year of college we had only mentioned the idea of us getting married as something we both wanted, but felt like it was way off in the future and we didn’t have to worry about it. We were wrong. Junior year started and we started to talk about what us getting married would really look like. We talked about everything from the ring she wanted to where should might want to get married, to whether or not I was able to get a dog before we actually get married. We covered all of the bases. Junior year goes great and we do our thing in the fall and in the spring. This year we are both leading bible studies for the people around us and are both continuing to grow with each other and with the Lord. Now I have to figure out what I am going to do for my last year of college. While MB is going to finish her last year at Auburn like she always planned, I no longer play baseball for Jacksonville State and my future is up in the air for a month or two. But no need to start worrying, I decided I will finish my last year early and graduate in December so getting married can go off without a hitch. That is what is going to happen right? Right? Anyways the most recent part of our story is that on June 28th, 2024 we got engaged! After dating for just a few months shy of 5 years I finally decided I was ready to ask her to marry me. It only took one try and she said yes, so if she wants out now she can take it up with the Lord. I tried my hardest to hide the proposal from her and did an okay job, but she didn’t make it easy. Those are stories to be shared another time though. Now we are planning our wedding and looking towards our future together. We are trying to figure out our jobs after school, where we want to live, and how in the world we are going to have the wedding we want without winning lottery numbers. All in all life is good right now, life is great. Our story is everything either of us could have asked for and more. We have been blessed countlessly by the Lord in our friends, our families, and in each other. We are so excited to be walking into the next steps of our lives together and to be sharing it with everyone we love. The only thing left to do now is count down the days to July 12th, 2025 and get the two of us married!!</p>

The Story of Us

Mary Brook & Austin

Mary Brook & Austin

Timeline

September 22, 2019

January 01, 2020

May 24, 2020

July 10, 2020

September 20, 2020

November 11, 2020

February 15, 2021

April 20, 2021

May 21, 2021

May 21, 2021

May 24, 2021

June 21, 2021

November 23, 2021

February 21, 2022

December 01, 2022

February 26, 2023

July 11, 2023

November 25, 2023

March 11, 2024

June 28, 2024

June 29, 2024

October 19, 2024