johnny: One year ago today I proposed to Allison.

Now we’ve had our wedding and are real life married people, but there was something so special about that day and the season of being engaged.

Real talk, it is scary to let yourself want something like marrying a person. To face all the uncertainty and fear with another person and decide to choose forever means you’ve undergone a lot of risk and vulnerability. That was definitely the case for us and getting engaged was a decision we approached slowly and with a lot of thought.

Getting engaged is also really really fun! I loved all the planning that I put into that day and it is such a fond memory. I think one of the best decisions I made in the planning process was getting our friends involved. It made the excitement exponentially greater and the whole experience more vibrant. I will never forget drawing maps and writing timelines on napkins at a local dive bar with five of our good friends as I finalized the plan and we divvied up responsibilities (that also happened the same night Leo DiCaprio finally won an oscar… It was a good time of year). Our friends and families made the day feel so celebratory and overwhelmed us with love and support. I loved how involved our community felt in that moment.

That day began a completely new season of life for us. A season of planning, anticipation, and a thousand little decisions that come with planning a wedding and how to merge two lives into one.

There has been a lot of transition, learning, and growth since that day but it has also been the most fun and joyous year of my life. And I still feel as celebratory to spend my life with Allison today as I did a year ago when I asked her to marry me.

to read the full story on allison’s blog, CLICK HERE.  // photos by Natalie Puls