I know it when I see it

This seems to be the theme of my life, basically. I'm a girl who knows exactly what she wants, is not afraid to explore other options, but will ultimately follow her instinct. This has proved successful in many areas of my life, including choosing to go to Australia on exchange among many other countries upon hearing one person talk about it and loving every minute of it, knowing I would attend UW-Madison after one tour of the campus and having a fabulous college experience, and (this is a bold statement without knowing the outcome) only applying to one graduate school to earn my Masters of Occupational Therapy degree. This characteristic of mine has especially been apparent during the wedding planning process. I haven't talked too much about the planning experience, but I'll give you some examples of when my "intuition" was right: While searching for a wedding dress, I went to one bridal shop with my mom and didn't find anything, and then I looked on ebay and bought the dress of my dreams. I knew it was "the one" when I failed a Physiology exam because I kept thinking about it. I'll always remember being in the quiet area of the library with Jamie (my roommate and maid of honor) as the last few minutes of the bid went by: I was neck and neck with another bidder, but I got my dress! We were both sweating from excitement. It was a great moment! Another example occurred within the first week of our engagement when Ceej and I were discussing colors and flowers and said brown with fushia and lime green orchids, knowing it would most likely change with time. We went back and forth with a lot of different options, but ultimately our bridesmaid dresses are brown and we are having magenta flowers with a few lime green orchids. Pretty close! While shopping for wedding bands, I found one that is really beautiful and unique. It was at the first place we had looked, so we searched many other places over the course of a few months, but we went back to that initial jaw-dropper. My most recent example happened today, actually: I went to the mall to "browse" for wedding jewelery and bought the first and only pair of earrings that I tried on. Granted I did look at 6 other places before going back to purchase these, I knew the entire time that these were the ones. I absolutely love them! I tried them on and gasped-not to sound conceded, but my ears have never looked better. Not that earrings or flowers are life or death situations, but I've learned to follow these "intuitions" in regards to more important issues as well. I take them as God's clues to helping me make decisions. He knows us so much better than we know ourselves, so why not just listen and trust where he leads us?

It has truly been a joy to plan the details of the first day of our marriage with Ceej. He has been an amazing partner in this process, attending every consultation and making every decision with me, contributing ideas, labor, and insight. I am reminded every day of the most apparent example of trusting my first instincts: I fell in love at 14, let both of us have our time to develop into individuals, and here we stand just a few months away from our lives joining forever. I am just beside-myself-elated. As corny as it sounds, sometimes I just feel like I am illuminating with pure joy and bursting at the seams with happiness.