How We Decided to Get Married

On our three-year anniversary, I thought I would share how Eric and I decided to get married after three months of dating. You can read about how we met here.

We found ourselves on the floor of my dining room. I was holding onto him; we were both crying.

What’s the point of loving you if you’re just going to leave in a few months? I said through my tear-stained face. He just held onto me, with his lips quivering and tears streaming down his face not being able to say anything.

I had realized my awful predicament: I had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with a man who would be leaving in the late summer for the Air Force to train as a pararescuer.

We left each other that night without any answers to our questions.

The following morning, I called in late to work and went to see my mom at her office. I cried and cried as I told her I had no idea what to do. She told me to pray.

So as I drove the 45 minutes to work, I prayed out loud asking God to please help us figure this out. I was angry and told Him it wasn’t fair that He would do this to us. How could I suddenly find the man that I knew 100% I wanted to spend the rest of my life with only to have him leave in a few months for who knows how long?

And finally, I told Him, I put it in Your hands. And just like that–the tears stopped streaming down my face. I felt a complete wave of peace wash over me. And I knew that the answer would eventually present itself.

That Saturday, on a drunken St. Patrick’s Day-themed pub crawl, we decided to get married now. You would have thought that we had invented electricity; we were geniuses! Yes, let’s get married NOW.

By getting married, we could move in together for several months before he left and I would be given rights to his Air Force information, medical privileges, etc.

With only a few days of vacation time left at my job, I chose April 2 as our wedding date, because I had the day off work; it was Good Friday, and it was three weeks away. Within those three weeks, I met his parents for the first time, our parents met each other for the first time, and a small courthouse wedding with a backyard reception was planned (my mom was a saint for handling that part).

My dress was $40 off the rack at Macy’s and I absolutely loved it. We purchased our rings from Sam’s Club and had them engraved. We signed a lease on a new apartment. Looking back now, I have no idea how we were able to accomplish so much in three weeks.

A few months after we got married, we had several long conversations that eventually led to Eric withdrawing from the Air Force.

And here we are three years later. I can’t believe how crazy we were and yet it still feels like the best decision I ever made.