What a beautiful day it is to share a wedding so very full of happy. Happy colors, happy couple, happy flowers, happy everything! :) I love it when pink and yellow come together, especially when it takes the form of luscious yellow bridesmaids dresses, bright pink flip flops and hot pink gerbera daisy bouquets. They’re such a happy flower aren’t they? I love them. Almost as much as I love this gorgeous beach wedding captured by the incredibly amazing and talented Briana and Brian Macon of Macon Photography! Just try and keep the smiles at bay…

Sarah and Chris first met while Sarah was working at AJ Gators in Chesapeake, Virginia in 2005. Chris would come in for poker on Wednesday nights and they would make small talk every time they saw each other. One night, Sarah asked his friend, Rusty, if Chris was single and asked if he would pass along her phone number. Mind you, this was the first time Sarah had ever done anything like this and was more than a little nervous when a week had passed and Chris hadn’t called. Or so she thought…

When she saw him again about a week later, she approached him and asked why he had not called. He told her that he had…three or four times. Caught completely off guard she asked if he’d left a message, explaining that she rarely picked up on numbers she didn’t know. He told her no which resulted in a good round of laughs from his friends seated around the table. They hung out for the rest of the evening before Chris left to play poker at a friends house. But not before making plans to see Sarah again later that week.

They went to dinner at Bella Monte in Virginia Beach for their first official date. It was amazing! After dinner they decided to rent a movie, Cellular, which is now a huge joke because the movie was so horrible. Really. It was. They shared their first kiss that night and it was in that moment that Sarah knew she’d found something special in Chris, something she did not want to let go of.

They spent much of their first summer together on the beach. Because Chris loves to surf and will find any excuse to go to the beach and Sarah could spend all day, every day at the beach, it was inevitable they would become the perfect match.

After about eight months of being together and going on countless dates, Sarah decided it was time to tell Chris how she really felt. One night at his apartment while reading him the lyrics to Jack Johnson’s “Better Together” (which was the song Sarah later walked down the aisle to), she told him that she knew he was the one for her. A few days later, Chris told her he loved her too.

After more than six years of dating and seeing their friends marry off, Sarah was getting that marrying itch. She began to drop “subtle” hints like leaving pictures of engagement rings on the refrigerator in their house, talking about possible locations, who would be invited to their wedding, etc.

One weekend, shortly before they were to attend yet another friend’s wedding, Chris’ mom, Michele, came into town from Texas. Little did Sarah know that she was coming to help Chris pick out her engagement ring, the very same from the picture Chris had taken off of the refrigerator that Sarah had assumed had been thrown away. He purchased the ring that weekend with his mother’s help and because he knew Sarah loved to snoop, hid it exceptionally well.

After their friends’ wedding (the second in only a matter of weeks), Chris and Sarah felt the need to get away and relax a bit. They decided to take a long weekend to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, a vacation destination they loved and had traveled to on numerous occasions.

In the week leading up to their weekend getaway, Sarah began to wonder if Chris was planning on popping the question that weekend, but didn’t want to get her hopes up. So when they arrived at the Villas of Hatters, Sarah insisted they take a moment to get settled and unpack, not realizing that Chris was ready to head down to the beach right then and propose!!! He waited patiently though, and thirty-minutes later, they were off.

They made small talk as they walked and when Sarah asked if they could walk in the water, Chris grabbed her hand to stop her. “Before you go, I have something I want to tell you,” he said. The moment had arrived and everything and everyone around them disappeared as Chris told Sarah how much he loved her, that she made him the happiest man in the world, and that having his best friend by his side had made their rather long journey together completely wonderful. He then pulled the ring from his pocket and asked if she would do him the honor of becoming his wife. Through her tears, joyful screams, and excited jumping up and down, she said yes!

{From the Bride} The weeks leading up to our wedding were stressful. Not because of last minute details, but because we were planning on getting married outside on the beach. As most brides know, weather is the one thing you cannot control. As the big day approached, we were checking every weather website there was to get an idea on whether we had to change our beach location or not.

The day we traveled down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina was very cold, windy and rainy. It quickly became apparent we would not be able to have the ceremony on the beach like we had planned as the storms of previous months had wiped a good portion of it away. We decided instead to have the ceremony on this great sun-deck overlooking the beach, and in the end, it was perfect. The weather was too. While we shivered in the 30 mph winds the night of the rehearsal, we could not have asked for more perfect weather the day of the wedding. The sun was out, the winds had died down, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Everyone says that the wedding day is a huge blur, but honestly we remember every part of our day. All of our guests stood on the top balcony as we were married on the sun-deck below. Our favorite moment was the first time we saw each other as I was being taken down the stairs by my stepfather, David. The ceremony was amazing. We each wrote our own vows and loved hearing how the other felt in front of our friends and family. After the ceremony we headed over to Duck Woods Country Club for our reception. The room looked amazing. We could not have asked for a better setup. Our first dance was “At Last” by Etta James, and it was as if no one else was in the room. As we looked into each other’s eyes, it finally sank in that we were now husband and wife and would begin a new journey together.

{Advice for Couples} Weddings can be overwhelming for everyone, especially the bride. At times, brides can get so caught up in the planning that they forget what truly matters. Inevitably someone will ask you to change something because they don’t like it – stick to what you and your groom want. It’s about you that day. You’re allowed to be selfish about this. In the end, you have to step back and remind yourselves that when it comes down to it, all that truly matters is the uniting of two people who truly love one another.

Congratulations, Sarah and Chris! We wish you both so much love, laughter and happiness in the years ahead of you! Thank you so much for sharing your love story with us! And a special thank you much to Briana and Brian for sharing their very special day and incredible talent with us today! xoxo