Head over Heels
"We are so thankful to say our story started with God and we pray He remains the center of our relationship every day as we continue to choose to love and honor one another.
We met at small group through our church in early 2024. Jenna saw Justin first - He was tall, dark, and handsome, and she quickly discovered he loved God and exuded His Spirit in a rare way. She was iiiiinterested 🤩. Justin too noticed Jenna was tall and beautiful 🫠 with a touch of mystery that intrigued him. His heart was all a flutter and he found himself feeling like a school boy seeing his crush walking down the hallway!
We started talking and hit it off despite the initial conversations revealing some of our differences such as Jenna being a proud, classic cat lady 🐈⬛💁♀️ while Justin pretended he had a cat allergy 🤧 as a child due to his dislike of the *delightful* beings. (ps don’t worry friends, he’s a cat fan now ☺️. Ooooor he’s at least a Jenna fan, which makes him a cat purrrrson by default 😉). (pps Justin says he might actually have a cat allergy after all…jk).
Over the next month, daily looong text messages turned into calls and finally a date 🥳. Jenna had been backpacking in Patagonia 🏔️ in February and Justin smoothly asked if he could take her out for ☕️ (one of his most beloved passions!) upon her return home to hear adventure stories and see pictures.
Jenna was swooning on the first date when Justin went puddle jumping in the rain (a simple joy of hers) in *suede* shoes - the man was making points! When he looked into Jenna’s eyes, Justin was at a loss for words, feeling like he was forgetting basic English and sentence formulation (Jenna didn’t notice as she too was lost in his gaze). In a classic “how do I get this girl to like me” moment, he reluctantly hailed a silent YOLO and jumped in puddles (yes, in suede shoes!).
2 weeks later, we had our first kiss 😘 while cloud gazing and picnicking in the park. We made J&J official 💘 with the Defining The Relationship talk a few days afterwards. We were off the market and thrilled about it. Next, we were exchanging I Love Yous (we’re both proponents of speaking your truths!) and freaking our families out with eeearly mentions of matrimony just a couple of months in (Sorry not sorry 🙃).
As we continued to spend time with one another, Justin became head over heels for Jenna’s faith, intellect, and tenderhearted and kind soul. She opened his eyes to appreciate the beauty of nature and people in a unique and authentic way. And Jenna fell in love with Justin’s thoughtfulness, vulnerable honesty, lighthearted silliness, and his steadfast, earnest love for God.
9 months later and just a few days before Christmas during the loveliest of light snows, we found ourselves reminiscing on the past year as we walked through the park where we had our first 💋. Justin got down on one knee and asked the question Jenna had been daydreaming about, “Will you marry me?”. Through joyful tears (there were a lot 🥹), she confidently said, “Yes!”.
We are both humbled by God’s blessing in bringing us together and are excited to commit our lives to one another in Christ all the days of our lives - both the ones easy to delight in and those where it is challenging to find the goodness.
Additional notes regarding the ring design process:
There was so much joy and excited anticipation in the process of designing an engagement and wedding band with InBloom. Their team is filled with kind, creative individuals who are skilled in their craft and make the process an engaging and enjoyable shared experience. Jenna’s mom has dreamed of gifting each of her children one of her diamonds. Jenna’s older sister proudly wears one in her engagement ring. To carry on the tradition, Jenna’s mom gifted her one as well - the diamond Jenna’s dad proposed to her mom with almost 40 years ago. Jenna and Justin both knew they wanted a special setting to reflect the sentiment held in her mom’s heritage stone.
While visiting Frederick one weekend, we stumbled upon InBloom and instantly fell in love with the beauty of the unique, nature inspired designs and the welcoming spirit of the InBloom team. In no time, we had our consultation appointment and the designing process was underway. As a surprise for Jenna’s mom, InBloom also placed a new stone into her mom’s original engagement setting, which Jenna gave to her mom around the holidays for her birthday. Both the new wedding band for Jenna and the original engagement setting for her mom have green sapphires - an ode to nature as well as their shared bond. We will treasure them forever.
Thank you so much!"
-Jenna and Justin