Demetria and I met in 2000 during a zip-code fellowship at University Park Baptist Church. Who would have known we would go from meeting at church to dinner to falling in love, to marriage?

During the Christmas holiday of 2001, we were preparing to visit our families in South Carolina and Virginia and decided to exchange gifts before we departed. The last gift I gave her was a multi-compartment jewelry box, and her ring was at the bottom. I actually had to tell her to go through the entire jewelry box to find the ring! When she did, she was so surprised; she hadn't even realized I asked her to marry me. She finally said yes after the shock wore off.

This began 11 months of planning. The first thing we did was set a wedding date, November 16, 2002. Then we met with Betty Suber, our wedding director for a two hour planning session. Mrs. Suber was the best thing that happened to us as she went over every detail of planning our wedding. The first thing we did was hire our photographer, G&C Photographics, which was easy because we had heard how great they were from friends that used them for their wedding. We sat down with Gene and Connie on a Sunday afternoon to go over details and that started the ball rolling! We received so many compliments on our photographer and the excellent job they did on our pictures, we started to feel like movie stars!

From there we found our caterer and videograher, Creative Catering and CGM Productions, who we were also referred to. We couldn't have asked for anything more perfect than our vendors-we were sopleased with everything.

Everything fell into place from the hotel, Four Points Sheraton, musician, Eric Reed, harpist Harp Occasions, to the reception at the Carole Heofner Center.

The next thing we knew the week of the wedding was here. We were pretty relaxed after getting massages at Oasis Day Spa a couple of days prior to the wedding. The day before the wedding was very hectic. Family members from Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina were arriving continuously throughout the day.

Finally, the big day arrived filled with showers of blessing and even the rain could not spoil this very special day. We enjoyed every minute of it!!