August 23rd, 2008 - A Friends' Wedding to Change our Lives

Skyler & I met at some of our best friends, Zach & Gemma Hale's wedding rehearsal, on August 22nd, 2008. I was walking out of Zach's parents house (next to the church where they were married at), with Zach and we saw Skyler from a distance. Skyler's first thought about me from afar was that I was Gemma and "boy, they are a cute couple!" As we neared he saw realized I wasn't Gemma, but just another cute girl. :) Zach introduced us and immediately I tagged Skyler as the cutest of all Zach's groomsmen. "Boy, I hope we are paired to walk together!" I thought. Skyler was thinking the same thing. When it came time to determine pairings, I remember Gemma saying, "We don't care who walks together, but we thought Kayla could walk with Caleb (Zach's little brother)." BOO! I was bummed. No walking together with the cute boy with the dimple.
Later that night after the rehearsal and dinner, Skyler was shooting hoops with some younger boys. I walked over (basketball being my game) and I observed Skyler missing almost all of his shots. I casually made the comment "Hmm, you kind of suck at basketball." Little did I know, that comment is what hooked him. He thought, "Wow, she's not afraid to tell it how it is."
The next night, at Zach & Gemma's wedding, we managed to stand next to each other in some group photos, and he even got to put his arm around me in some. :) They had contra dancing, and the whole night I wanted to dance with Skyler, but his buddy from NY asked me to be his dance partner for the night instead. The beautiful thing about contra dancing is that you switch up partners frequently, so I danced off and on with Skyler. The very last song was basically where everyone ended up joining hands and winding around in a big snake - by the grace of God, it worked out that Skyler and I ended up next to each other in line and held hands through that entire dance. (This is the first picture of us...blurry, but first pic, nonetheless...dad snapped it as we were chatting and grabbing punch after dancing). At the end of the evening, Skyler and I exchanged numbers and made plans to watch a movie with his friends from NY before they flew home.
During the movie night, all the chairs were taken in Skyler's apartment, except for a spot next to me on the futon. Skyler sat on the floor. I told him, "hey, there's room here if you want" and he replied, without glancing away from the movie, "Thanks, I'll sit here." I decided at this point that he must not be interested. However, after the movie ended, he jumped to his feet and offered to walk me to my car. We chatted for a while and made plans to get together again.
We took about 3 walks in parks over the next week and 1/2 and on Sunday night, Sept. 7th, we layed out on a blanket looking up at the stars and stayed up until 5 am talking. That was when we both realized that we had found each other - the one we were made for! 2 days later we were already talking marriage. We decided August 22nd, 2009, a year later from the day we met, was the perfect date....

I'm searching for pictures of this event...