Ring the Bell!

While we were at Passion a couple weeks ago, I got to help out with another surprise proposal!  This one was for my friend Jessica.  Jessica and I first met at The Well's ministry team retreat in the fall of 2007.  We served together on ministry teams for the next two years and had mutual friends, but were not super close.  Last year when I joined staff with The Well, Jessica was one of the team leaders for one of ministry teams that I helped lead.  We met in a small group on Sundays, worked together to pull off Wednesday nights at The Well, and met one-on-one every Thursday night at Barnes & Noble.  We discussed ministry team stuff, our personal walk with the Lord, relationships, fears, desires, struggles, dreams, and secrets.  And all of this was done with lots of laughter, occasional tears, lattes, and spinach and feta stuffed pretzels.  Needless to say, by the end of last school year Jessica and I were very close.  So, fast forward to late November or early December when her then-boyfriend, Will, called and told me of his plan to propose at Passion (where they met last year) and that he would need a little bit of help.  I was totally in!  The proposal was so much fun and totally surprised Jessica!  You can watch it here on YouTube.  And all of that leads up to the picture above!  Jessica's mom, grandmother, Will's mom, and 6 of her bridesmaids (including myself) headed to David's Bridal on Sunday to do some dress shopping.  Jessica is beautiful, so everything she tried on looked amazing, but we all all had a pretty good idea the whole time which dress she would choose; one that she had seen a year ago and had loved ever since.  She saved it for last and when she came out with it on, we knew it was the one.  They had a tradition at the store that when a bride-to-be found the dress, she would ring a bell.  When Jessica rang her bell we all clapped and cheered, in fact, we all clapped and cheered when anybody in the store rang a bell.  There was a girl next to Jessica trying on dresses the whole time we were there too and we all made comments on hers as well.  She started crying when she found her dress, and then that made a few of us cry!  We were a loud, giggly, teary-eyed group of girls!  At this point, Jessica's will be the third wedding I'm in in 2011 and I am so excited!  It is going to be a blast!   And I have a feeling August 6th will be here before we know it!