Wedding Day

Ceremony

Galena Creek Fish Hatchery

Reception

Cocktail Attire

Our Wedding

I first saw Ryan outside of my apartment one night after he had finished attending my sister's community group. My sister was gone for the night so I was in charge of letting everyone in and seeing them out after the group was finished. They yelled up to me to tell me the group was over and that everyone was leaving. 30 minutes later I heard talking outside my front door. It was January in Reno, so very cold outside, and Ryan was talking to his group leader. I asked if they wanted to come inside and still chat. I didn't mind them staying extra. They told me no and then 10 minutes later I check on them again and ask them for the last time if they'd like to come in because it's so cold. They again declined and then finished their conversation. I remember in that moment thinking, "Well, that guy was really cute." That was my first ever memory of Ryan. Fast forward a couple of month, I saw him get baptized at church and we started to serve on the same 6pm greeting team at Living Stones. We chatted a few times while serving together and saw each other after every 6pm service after party. When I grew to love Ryan's character and personality was a summer of major choice and growth for me. Through out the summer, what I thought was full of hard decisions and disappointments of my past coming back was actually the Lord fully preparing my heart for the one he has always had for me. I was learning what it truly means to be loved by someone and to love some one with the same amount of grace and dedication as Christ has for us. There was a specific moment in the summer of 2019 that I remember very vividly. We were at Sizzle Pie after church with a bunch of other people from the 6pm Living Stones service. When it was time to go home a bunch of us gathered together to walk back to the parking lot. Ryan and I began to run. Playfully we were running and hiding from the group we were with. He even challenged me to only jump on only the white parts of the cross walk. (I should have known this was a bad idea because of the heels I was wearing.) I of course took the challenge and ended up falling completely on my knees hahaha. (Fun little side note, I randomly have not worn those heels since that night and the next time they will be worn is on our wedding day). I went home that night and journaled, "I don't know what this means or if this is who I am supposed to marry, but that is what I want. That playfulness is what God has for me in a relationship." That was the 13th of June 2019. My crush grew hard for Ryan we continued to see each other randomly after the 6pm service at church where we learned that we both had similar taste in music. He told me, "We should bop to LANY sometime." (Gen Z) and I asked for his email when he went to Costa Rica to study abroad (Me being old and not recognizing that there is wifi to still send iMessages hahaha). Through out his trip I prayed for him and kept in daily contact. When he came back from Costa Rica he finally asked me to coffee. The first date was platonic and comfortable. He called me "dude" a lot and I was very unsure on what that meant hahaha. What I later recognized was something special, he was genuinely pursuing who I was and getting to know me so authentically before searching for a romance. We gradually fell into having all the heart sparkles for each other through out the several dates we went on after. It was at mini golf and going to Brasserie Saint James after that I realized this guy is the real deal. He was so intentional with my heart and his relationship with Jesus I couldn't help but fall head over heels with his integrity. After many phone calls, walks, and bible studies after work I grew to see Ryan's heart. How much he loved others and loved the lord and how he did it so well. We grew close really fast after that. We intertwined each other in our own lives as he continued to finish his college degree and pursue music intently. And he joined me in my journey for my passion of child care and photography. Once Covid-19 hit we had lots of time to grow in communication and we learned how the Lord is truly in the center of our relationship and with out Him we would show no fruit. The Lord is our strength and we pray daily that he will use this relationship to further and bless the kingdom. Our love for each other has taught us just how great God's love is for us. This love story is being written every day and I am so thankful that it gets to be with Ryan. There is a quote from Tim Keller that says. “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” When ever I read this quote it instantly reminds me of Ryan. He has known and loved me so well. A true reminder of the Character of God.

Lauren's Version

Even though Lauren didn't know it, our story began about three months prior to seeing her outside her apartment. When I first attended Living Stone's Church I was a skeptic and figuring a lot out and I found myself in a seat on Sunday waiting for service to start and I saw a group of girls walk across the opposite side of the church and there she was wearing this autumn hat that looked like she was about to sit at "the cool kids table" but at the same time I don't know what brought it over me but I remember her because of her eyes and I said to myself, "she's gorgeous and there's no chance for me." There have been many times in my life when I've noticed this strange shift in feeling and change in life and every time I ever had another interaction with Lauren the changes came more frequently. It was after I saw her that I started to pursue Jesus (maybe it was because I'd have a better chance lol). Then after I saw her in January outside her apartment and was wishing she'd stay longer so I could talk to her a bit more I began to question the deepest parts of my life the way that we do as Christians and turn over to something greater than ourselves and look to him as savior. Was she some how causing my life to turn into a constant circle of life changing events? No that was Jesus, but keep reading. I got baptized after I had experienced a radical shift in thinking and way of life that I wanted Jesus to be savior and started to rest in this and there was Lauren congratulating me on making my choice after church and she started to appear a lot after that. Sizzle pie at the church after party began and she just would always be there looking stunning but I didn't really know her character and as much as I wanted to just walk up and talk to her something told me to let it play it's course and don't force anything. So naturally as the night went on I didn't want to be anything other than myself and was laughing having fun with friends and our groups clashed together. We talked. I saw her with those big brown eyes ready to take on everyone that night as she was entertaining other friends and being kind, funny, outgoing, and she peaked my interest. So I said screw it as we all walked back to our cars together and started talking to her briefly about the evening and what it would be like to only jump on the white lines on the crosswalk cause that would be fun (I was trying to be fun I didn't know I was going to cause an injury). But at least she did it looking good in those heels. But then there was that shift again, a pure moment of rapture with both literal pain but joy seeing us like that together and not as a foreign person but as a friend and seeing the possibility of her as something more. As she got up and smiled I saw the face of someone pure and holy and honestly made me a little scared because she wasn't someone I just wanted to date around with and see where things go... she was a potential teammate. Up until this point in my life, it's always been about join my team and do what I want. But I wanted to join her team. It was a longing that got awoken that I hadn't had in a long time. So now after seeing her in action I had to make an expectation. She blew every single expectation that I had out of the water and God laid down a new foundation. I don't claim to hear the audible voice of God but the surrounding feeling and conviction came to simply say, "This is bigger than you. Rest in me and my love because I'm going to prune you." In a natural kung-fu movie kind of way I had to start training and really come into who I was becoming in Christ. So I studied abroad in Costa Rica. So on my quest my buddy TJ had told me about this book on dating and I was starting self awareness training and prayer every day in a way I didn't experience previously. There was peace but also a lot of scary life crisis moments I had to wrestle with God about. Called my friend from high school Grayson to dish out some trauma and called my parents when I should have been drinking two dollar tequila shots on the beach (sorry mom for that image). But God put me on a different path to pursue Him through understanding my own shortcomings and false identity that I had to give to him to overcome and start to understand who it is I really am. I knew that I didn't just want to pursue dating for the sake of having somebody around but I wanted purpose with God and Life and ultimately come to a relationship with that purpose! That sucked, and I don't think I'll personally get there completely in this life but at the start of the journey I was scared and alone in a foreign country (I might be dramatizing) trying to answer the question who am I and what am I about? But it wasn't until I got home and overwhelmed by these questions and finishing up my last semester in a degree I honestly didn't know what I was going to do with that it happened again. Another shift. Lauren and I are texting (as I showed her the wonderful convenience of texting instead of emailing in 2019). We go out for coffee and I started to ask her about her faith. I wasn't really interested in the chit chat just to get things started. To me she wasn't a stranger at sizzle pie anymore, she was more than just someone I wanted to hangout with, and I wanted her to see that I wasn't just pursuing a girl for dating... I wanted to know her. So things clicked, we went mini golfing, I was excited for this thing that was occurring. But one more thing had to happen before I could really say I want to date this girl. All that Costa Rica stuff? I needed to let her know who I was even though I told her the main stuff I didn't really tell her how I really felt. After an official first big date to the balloon races that night at Sizzle Pie I sat Lauren down and said "I want to make things official with you you but I don't just want to date you I want to pursue marriage with you. You're not just a girl to me that I want for myself I can see you as a potential team mate but I need to let you know about me." So I opened up and shared some deep stuff I had wrestled with in Costa Rica because I wasn't just going for a relationship to ease things up I wanted to pursue God. There we were laughing it off because the reassurance of the gospel was put right on that moment. We were becoming team mates. So I kissed her that night. We've had an incredible dating relationship and these shifts occurred continuously throughout the relationship as I would continue to forget my identity and reclaim it in Christ and Lauren would not only be there to remind me but continuously kick my butt to remember who I actually was. The man I claimed to be at the Sizzle Pie table. We proceeded to not just have an interesting dating relationship. The most revealing of her character through the hard moments and even then I knew that she was still worth it. Though I am broken there came a time when we were dating when we had proceeded to go through "hell" and I still knew there was no other place I'd rather be because of who she was and what she stood for even when she didn't feel strong enough to stand up for it. The mundane walk of life through a year of COVID at home where we faced more crisis in our faith. Through it all I still knew her heart and my heart that Jesus wasn't a commodity for us. This was a relationship and one we wanted to fight for. I had talked to pastors, her parents, and my parents about making a decision I had never made before. I was 22 fresh out of college in the middle of a pandemic trying to figure myself out. A voice creeped in and said "nobody said you had to marry her" and the voice was right and I dug deep and started to look at our relationship and prayed to God, "I don't want just what I want but I want what you want no matter how hard it may be. I'm going to pursue this in faith and let it be your will not mine." So I got a plan, kept it in secret (not even her roommate knew when it was happening), got a ring, and was ready to go. It happened again, another shift. Throughout this last part of our dating relationship, I recognized how much it was about me, and the person whom Lauren was in front of me was like that of a woman whom I'd never seen before a woman whom as I had gotten close and was checking off idealistic boxes I recognize she had shattered all my expectations once again. She was perfect to me with all she was. She is still perfect to me. She will change and continue to be perfect to me as God revealed to me who she is becoming in Jesus. It's beyond describable and more important than anything I'm doing for myself. I waited six months to finally ask the question but recognized I could've totally done it sooner because she was so authentically walking with Christ and I wanted in. She is special. So God's will came to pass. Lauren and I got engaged and we are three months out from the wedding and nothing has changed. God was there making shifts in the church seats, outside her apartment, getting ice cream, at sizzle pie, in Costa Rica, at coffee, at the balloon races, and every day since he has been there shifting and pruning and growing our relationship not just to make things happy but to show us Love. He's been doing this since the beginning of time to show his Glory through her and I and I'm so thankful for Jesus because my life and my purpose are because of Him and have been pushed by her love and her trust and her wisdom and the truth. I am not the same man that I was. I am 23 and getting married and don't want it any other way. God works. Try him out. I've been pruned and grown not for what I want but what he wants. It's still happening and not happening any other way. I'm becoming more and more of the person who belongs on Lauren's team. She is so worth it. Praise God for her! Praise God for everything about her! Praise God!

Ryan & Lauren

Ryan & Lauren

Photos