I have been trying to adequately sum up my love for this couple and words are just failing me. You see, Abby has been one of my closest friends for the past five years, and one of the first people I’d call for just about anything. We spent countless hours in our college years talking about everything and anything, often wondering and dreaming about the men God had planned for us. The summer after our junior year of college, Abby spent seven weeks in Tiger, GA as a summer missionary for LifeTeen’s Covecrest Summer Camp. Shortly after she returned home from camp, I drove up to visit her for a weekend and hear all about her life at camp. After filling me in on myriads of stories of the various hilarious adventures and beautiful spiritual encounters she experienced, Abby paused and said “ok and well, um, there’s this guy I met….”

Over the next couple months, Abby & Andrew began to write letters to each other and near the end of September of our senior year, Abby flew down to Florida to visit “a bunch of camp friends” (but we all knew she was going down to visit one in particular 😉 ). By the end of the weekend, Abby came back to us with a boyfriend and the rest is history (actually, the rest is an absolutely beautiful story of God’s goodness and extravagant love). It’s been just about two years since that weekend and it has been one of the greatest privileges to watch Abby and Andrew’s relationship grow to where it is today.

Last weekend it was my turn to fly down to Florida for the weekend, not to visit camp friends or boys, but to visit Abby in her new house and meet her new roommates and see the life that the Lord has called her to down in that ridiculously hot but stunningly beautiful state. And the best part of the weekend? Getting a front-row seat to the joy and overwhelming gratitude that Abby and Andrew have for the gift of sharing ordinary life together now that they no longer have 900 miles separating them for the first time in their relationship. There’s now about a mile or less separating their houses and after two years of long-distance, it is a precious gift they are treasuring.

This past July, Andrew proposed to Abby with his great-grandmother’s ring, at the place that brought them together, the summer camp in the mountains of Georgia. And although I wasn’t able to celebrate with them in person when it happened, I think taking their engagement photos more than made up for missing the actual event.

Abby & Andrew, I love you both so much and I will forever treasure the memories of this past weekend, especially the two hours we spent taking these photographs.

To say I’m excited for next June is a bit of an understatement. 😉

Xoxo,
Mary Kate