Sara & Landon’s story

Wedding Date: April 18, 2009

A Little Bit of Background…

I am definitely a believer in the phrase that love has a way of finding you when you least expect it.  I came to know Landon at a point in my life where I had pretty much given up on the idea that honest, Godly men still existed in this world.  However, as our relationship evolved from co-worker to friend to boyfriend and then finally to my fiancé, this all began to change, and I hope by writing this I will do justice to the remarkable man that he is.

Before I can begin, I need to give you some background on another important person in my life, my grandmother.  My Grandma Rose was an amazing woman in every sense of the word.  She was a role model to me, and lived her life in such as way that I could only hope to.  I can still remember our last conversation as if it had happened yesterday.  I had just found out the guy I had been dating for the past year was not the person I thought he was.  Heartbroken, disappointed and frustrated, I called my grandmother for consoling.  She told me that she was praying for me and that she knew God was going to bring me someone wonderful, I just needed to trust in Him and be patient.  Two days after that conversation, my grandmother died peacefully in her sleep on July 3rd 2006.

How We Met…

I first met Landon in April of 2006 (about a year before we actually started dating).  We both worked for the same consulting firm.  I had already been working there for about a year and he had just been hired on as a new consultant.  He was assigned to the same project that I was working on and I have to admit that my first impression of him was that although he was cute, he was kind of a dork.  Due to limited space at our client site, Landon and I had to share the same office.   If you’ve ever had to share a workspace with another person, you’d know that this opens up a whole new window to someone, allowing you to see the quirky details you wouldn’t otherwise see in a social setting.

Landon had these reading glasses that he would always carry around with him, but never wear.  He was always twirling them with his fingers, chewing on the ends, putting them in the case just to take them back out again…..it drove me crazy!!

There was also a large window in our office that faced the other corporate office buildings along Turtle Creek Blvd.  This window was very distracting for Landon.  He would walk over to it about 15 times a day, nearly press his face up against the glass and say “Today would be a great day to be outside”.

Then there was the time I mistakenly mentioned in conversation that I couldn’t tell the difference between canned and fountain Dr Pepper.  When I saw the look of genuine concern on Landon’s face, I knew I had made a mistake.  For the next 30 minutes of our lunch break, Landon carefully and methodically explained to me the critical, yet distinctive difference between the two as if the information he was giving to me would one day save my life.  I quickly learned to never confuse the two again!

All in all, Landon reminded me of a kid….a good guy, but not a guy that I would ever see myself dating.

Eventually, Landon and I moved on to different projects.  Although we didn’t see each other, he would periodically send me emails to check in and see how I was doing.  At company events, he would always make a point to talk to me and I found myself looking forward to our conversations and his emails.  I still had no intentions of dating him, but he was becoming a good friend.  In July of 2006, my Grandma Rose passed away unexpectedly. I was crushed. When Landon found out about this, he reached out to me expressing his sympathy and compassion for our family.  He said that he was praying for us and that if I needed anything to give him a call.  I did not call him, but I remember thinking that some girl was going to be really lucky to have a guy like him one day.

Falling In Love…

As fate would have it, in February of 2007 we were again staffed to the same project.  This project was a lot bigger than the last one Landon and I had worked on together.  There were about 16 people from our company assigned to this account and we would all be working in Los Angeles for the next 6 weeks.  While out of town, our project team made an effort to do something most nights of the week which meant Landon and I were eating dinner together, playing tennis, or doing some sort of activity together 3 or 4 times a week.  I noticed that I was trying to sit by him at every event we went to so I stopped myself only to find that he continued to sit by me.  Then one night, after dinner, he called me from his hotel room and somehow worked his way into coming to talk to me.  We had a long conversation about anything and everything.  I enjoyed talking to him but wasn’t sure what he thought of me.  I knew we were friends but I was afraid that was all we were going to be.

One weekend the team randomly decided to take a trip out to Vegas. Having already been to Vegas and not being much of a gambler, I was pretty reluctant to go.  But when Landon told me that he would go if I went, I quickly changed my mind!  As it turned out, Landon wasn’t much of a gambler either so we spent most of our time walking up and down the strip looking at all the extravagant hotels.  When we passed the Bellagio Fountains, I pulled Landon aside and we squeezed through the crowd to find ourselves a spot along the railing where we could watch.  The area was so packed with other spectators; Landon and I were squeezed together to the point where our arms hands and legs were touching.   I didn’t really mind ?. After the performance was over and the crowd parted, Landon and I stayed and talked for awhile (arms and hands still touching ?).  It was then that I realized this was the guy that I had been waiting for….the man that God had put on this earth for me.

Unfortunately, the LA project wrapped up and we were no longer scheduled to be in the same place.   Every once in a while Landon and I would cross paths in our company’s office.  On those days he would visit me at my cube multiple times a day to see what I was doing (I’m not sure if he ever got any work done on those days). He would then wait on me at the end of the day (even on the days when I worked until 6:00 or 7:00) so he could walk me to my car. Then he would just stand there awkwardly in front of my car, like he had something else he wanted to say, but just couldn’t spit it out.  The first few times this happened, I thought I would be encouraging.  I tried to wait out the awkward silences, in hopes that maybe Landon would get his words together and finally ask me out on a date. Bad move. This just led to more painfully awkward silences.

Just when I was about to give up on poor Landon, he finally got the nerve to ask me out! Our first date started off with Landon taking me to Lake Grapevine and showing me his favorite spot.  He then took me back to his place where he proceeded to awe me with his wide-range of cooking skills which included a gourmet meal of chips and queso and kettle-corn.  (Ladies, don’t be jealous now!)  We then watched the movie that we had picked out earlier that evening, The First King of Scotland, which turned out to be one of the worst 1st date movies ever!  All in all I had a good time.  It wasn’t the most glamorous date I had ever been on, but it was definitely the most meaningful and the most special.  There was something about Landon that was so honest and sincere that I had never experienced with anyone else before.  When he held my hand for the first time that night I knew that our year-long friendship had been sealed and our new relationship had begun.

Over the course of the year that Landon and I have dated, we’ve done everything from watching a movie or TV series on the couch to flying in a private plane over the metroplex.  He’s taken me to the lake in his boat which is actually an experience in and of itself because the entire time you’re on the lake, you’re praying that his old, beat-up boat will stay afloat!  In January of 2008, he bought our first house where we will live together after we’re married.  In the meantime, we’ve tried to spend our weekends fixing it up, but it looks like it will be a project that extends into our marriage.  We’ve also had the opportunity to interact with both of our families through vacations, graduations and weddings.  I already feel like I’m a part of his family and he is definitely a part of mine

Landon has continued to be a gentleman in every way possible throughout the course of our dating.  He continues to open doors for me and tries to breathe life into me on a daily basis.  That’s not to say that our relationship has not had its share of ups and downs but I can honestly say our downs have not ever been that bad.  We have a very trusting and forgiving relationship and we know that neither one of us would ever intentionally do something that might hurt the other person in any way.  Over time, I’ve come to realize that when Landon says he loves me, he means all of me, faults and all.  He’s committed to me regardless of whether our relationship is smooth sailing or crossing rocky terrain.

The Proposal…

This past Labor Day weekend Landon and I traveled to my grandmother’s former house in the small country town of Hallettsville, TX.  Although he never had the chance to meet my grandmother, Landon knew how special she was to me.  A few months into our dating, I had told Landon about the last conversation my Grandmother and I had together, and how he was the one she had been praying for me to find.

I remember on the day he proposed Landon kept asking me if I was going to take a shower.  I was a little annoyed with him and asked him, “Do you think I smell or something? Since when have you been so concerned about my hygiene?”  I found out later that he had kept asking me that because he didn’t want me to decide to take a shower right when he was getting ready to propose.  Just before sunset, Landon asked me to come outside with him for a walk.  We walked down to the pond in front of my grandmother’s house and stood there for a few minutes in silence as the sun began to set over the water.  I could smell the steaks that my dad was cooking out on the grill and a few deer began to cautiously walk up to the other side of the pond for a drink.  Pretty soon, ten of them had made it to the water to where we had this perfect picture moment that you would see in a Thomas Kinkade painting.

Landon had nervously said “You know I love you” a few times during these moments.  I just thought he was being weird because he does that sometimes.  But then he started in on a new phrase.  He said, “You know I went to see your parents a couple of months ago, right?”  Yes, I knew this, but nothing had ever come of it.  He continued, “I want to tell you what I said to them.  I told them that over the past year and a half, you had become my best friend.  I love you so much that it hurts to be away from you even for a day. I told them that I wanted to ask you to marry me so that I can continue to prove my love to you and your family for the rest of my life.”  Now I was starting to think that something was going on and I could feel my heart beating inside my chest.  I could also tell that Landon was really nervous.  He turned and looked at me and said, “You know that I’ve wanted to ask you to marry me, but you said I had to have a ring first…” Then he paused.  Oh no I thought….surely he wasn’t bringing me along this far and getting my hopes up only to tell me that he didn’t have a ring.  “Umm yeah” I replied, stating the obvious.  Then he looked at the worried expression on my face and laughed as he pulled out a ring and said, “Will this one work?”  Instinctively, I reached out to grab it only to have him pull it back.  “You have to say yes first, will you marry me?”  With tears in my eyes, I said, “Of course I will…Yes… You know that.”  On a side note, any ring that he could have given me would have been great.  However, he custom designed my ring so that it had everything I wanted.  He gave me a ring that was made specifically for me, and it was perfect.