From the first five minutes talking to Elnora on the phone, I fell in love with her and her fiancé, John. Their love story and solid foundation with God is what captivated me. It was no question that I was eager to meet these two in person and we finally had the chance to do so for their engagement session last week! Being that they live in southern Virginia made Madison County the perfect mutual place to meet. Our plan A didn’t quite work out from the amount of rain we had last month so we decided to postpone and squeeze in another time to make this happen. 🙂 And what better than the gorgeous Early Mountain Vineyards?! We ended up with the most gorgeous lighting as the sun set behind the mountains … I’m always a sucker for mountains! One day I’ll live with mountain views in sight of my front porch. 😉 One day! I’m glad they chose this beautiful location as their engagement backdrop! 🙂 They are just sweet, happy love birds and I’m honored to be documenting their story.
Thank you John and Elnora for postponing the first time around due to rain and for making the drive the second time around for the gorgeous sunset! <3 Cannot WAIT for your sweet wedding next year! I’m looking to seeing your slippers Elnora on the dance floor. 😉 Haha! XOXO! Thanks for a wonderful time last week!
How They Met from Elnora’s point of view…
John and I have known each other since we were 13 and 11 years old, respectively, so we have watched each other go through so many different milestones. In order to set the stage of how John and I met, I will tell you at little bit about us and our families. Both of us have mothers who were born and raised in another country. While both of our fathers are Americans. We are also both the oldest children in our families. My parents are deaf which threw in a whole other twist to our story. We were raised on opposite sides of the Maryland/Virginia border. My family was living in Maryland from the time that I was three years old until I was 18 years old. At the same time, John’s family was living in Virginia. My parents were pastoring a church in Maryland when they decided that it would be best for their congregation to move their deaf church from Maryland to Virginia. They decided to join a church that also had a hearing congregation for my sisters and I to be a part of. That same church happened to be the one that John had been attending for many years. I quickly became friends with his younger sister who was close to my age and John thought I was his sister’s weird friend and he was just my friend’s older brother. This dynamic went on for about three years.
Now here’s where the story gets a little bit interesting. In October 2008 I was sitting in Sunday school, just like every other Sunday, and I was so excited about my 14th birthday that was coming up in a week and John had mentioned that it was his 16th birthday. I thought it was so cool that our birthdays were so close to each other and I started paying attention to him. For the first time in the three years that I knew him I noticed how cute he was, but he was two years older than me so I knew it would be nothing more than a silly little crush on an older guy. Not long after that we started talking to each other at church which led to us texting almost all the time. I thought he was so funny and it was easy to talk to him. I loved talking to him and it seemed like he enjoyed talking to me too. After about a month, it was almost Christmas time and we were practicing for the church Christmas play, which I performed in and he helped out with. At this point I had already developed a major crush on him, and we were flirting back and forth all the time. He would look at me from the balcony and smile at me and make silly faces which made me giggle and I couldn’t pay attention to anything else that was going on around me. Around this time we finally had our first phone conversation, which led to us talking almost every single night. At this point I was pretty sure he liked me too but I was really worried because I was young and I didn’t really want to have a boyfriend but I really liked him. After a few more months of talking and flirting John finally asked me to be his girlfriend on March 2, 2009 and the rest is history 🙂
How John Proposed from John’s point of view…
My plan to propose to Elnora started in early October 2014. Having dated Elnora for over five and a half years, I knew so much about her. Literally everything from her Chipotle order to her idea of a perfect wedding day. What I didn’t know, though, was the style of engagement ring to get her. In October, I had a week off of school for my fall break, and I made sure to dedicate the week towards finding the perfect ring. After having sifted through a long list of jewelry stores in Northern Virginia, I was getting a bit worried since I hadn’t found a ring that immediately caught my eye. Finally, at the last store on my list, I found a perfectly cut diamond ring that I could not take my eyes off of. It was the perfect size, very elegant, and absolutely beautiful, just like the woman I was soon planning on giving it to.
As time slowly passed by throughout the rest of my semester at school, I was continuing to make plans towards asking the girl of my dreams to marry me. I made secret trips back home on several weekends to ask her parents and sisters for permission to ask Elnora to marry me. The news brought them all to tears as they responded to my request with a resounding yes and a big welcome into their family. My family was also incredibly supportive, with my sisters being excited to help plan out the proposal and catch it on video, while my brother was looking forward to being my best man. The support and happiness that this news was bringing to everyone just made it that much clearer that asking Elnora to marry me was the plan God had laid out for me. The real struggle, though, was trying to keep all of this news quiet over the next few months as I planned out the proposal details.
Christmas break was the next time I knew that Elnora and I would both be home from school, so I targeted the week between Christmas and New Years to pop the question.Monday, December 29th ended up being the date I decided on. Elnora was incredibly suspicious all week, especially since her sisters had recently taken her out to get a manicure and told her to make sure to keep her schedule open. I tried filling the days leading up to the proposal day with various dinner dates and activities to keep her thrown off.
On the proposal day, I decided to plan a day trip into Washington DC with Elnora, that would culminate with a proposal at the end of the night. We took the Metro train into the National Mall and spent much of the morning and early afternoon visiting museums and monuments. It was a chilly December day, so we spent a fair amount of time holding hands and hugging to stay warm. For dinner, I took Elnora to a new Italian restaurant just a few blocks away from the White House. The food was great, but I think Elnora could tell that I was starting to get a little nervous. The ring was in my jacket pocket all day and kept placing my hand over the box to make sure it was still there. I was also beginning to text my sister, who was with Elnora’s sisters and a close friend that would soon be a future bridesmaid. The plan was to get them into prime position to capture my proposal to Elnora on camera. I planned on proposing to Elnora right outside of the White House, by the Pageant of Peace Christmas tree display. After getting several of these texts out of the way, I was ready to pay the dinner check and escort my future fiancée to her proposal site. As we walked over to near the Christmas trees, I saw my sister and her entourage of paparazzis scurrying around, and I was incredibly worried that Elnora might see them off in the distance. In order to give them all time to get in place, I leaded Elnora back and gave her nice long kiss. As Elnora regained her balance, I looked around and saw that my photographers were in place. The lighting was perfect and you could clearly see the Christmas trees off in the distance. I slowly got down on one knee, and pulled out the ring box. After a few sappy words and maybe a couple of tears, I asked my best friend to marry me. When she responded with a “yes,” I leaned for a hug and kiss as all our photographers popped out with huge cheers. I was now officially engaged and continue to be amazed to this day at how I managed to convince such a beautiful and amazing woman to spend the rest of her life with me.
CONGRATS!!!
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