Oooo I so wish you, my dear reader could be sitting next to me right now.

The snow is falling softly outside my window and I’m sitting in front of my Christmas tree with a hot cup of coffee. 

So where were we? 

Ah yes… I’m GETTING MARRIED! 

We had already discussed having our wedding in the Fall of 2021, and a potential engagement around Christmas time. I would like to refer you back to the “busy-body clause” from the previous blog post. There was never a chance that anything would be a surprise for me and out of Mr. H’s great love for me, he graciously included my nosey butt in the planning. 

But as we got to talking about it, we both wanted to just get married. 

We’ve never lived together and after 4 and a half years we were both just SO ready to join our lives in every sense of the word. 

He looked at me and said, “What about in December? If anyone should have a Christmas time wedding it’s you” and gosh my heart swells at him knowing that there is no one more obsessed with Christmas than me. 

So we plotted, and planned and made some calls. 

A Christmas wedding.

A secret wedding.

A wedding solely about our love and our marriage.

We both are secret introverts. Him more so than me, I have this “show must go on and let’s razzle dazzle the crowd” gene. If you know me, you’re nodding your head right now. So the idea of wedding in which we both didn’t have to be stressed out, exhausted, and would lead us to both fall in bed on our honeymoon night wishing for some alone time was RIGHT up our alley. 

But where would we do it? Who would be involved?

And then the thought came to me. 

My Pappa’s farm. 

More specifically, Pittsboro, North Carolina.

An idyllic little town 20 minutes from my Pappa’s farm that looks like it’s straight out a Hallmark movie. A town I had grown up going to with my family and eating the famous, 9 scoops of ice-cream, banana split at S&T’s Soda Shop.

A county in which the Brooks heritage goes back hundreds of years. The prospect of having my marriage license next to all of my ancestors documents was a dream come true.

Yes. That was it. That is perfect.

I had previously called the Michigan clerks office and was met with an icy, “What do you want? Yea no, that’s not going to work right now. You’re getting married? Yea no, that’s not going to work right now”. But when I called the Chatham County Clerks office I was met with, “Oh honey, CONGRATULATIONS. We are all just so happy for you and we can definitely get you married here”. My heart soared. 

We set the date for December 11th. Two weeks away.

I set out to work on a dress. When I say that God orchestrated every single detail of this wedding… I mean… God ORCHESTRATED every single detail of this wedding. It just so happened that a dear family friend had given me her wedding dress the month prior. I was blown away and speechless when she gave it to me, but when I realized that I could alter it a bit and turn it into my dream wedding dress. Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather. I consulted my extensive Pinterest board and set to work. Just a little tweak here and there because miracle of miracles, the dress already fit me like it was made for me.

With the dress finished and carefully packed, the date set and all the appointments confirmed, an exhaustive and detailed itinerary completed and enough clothes to give me 4 outfit changes a day, I boarded my plane to North Carolina.