This is a very special story to me & I really wanted to share it with my girls because I wanted to remind you that “he’s out there” & you don’t have to settle. Your soulmate is just a letter away…you just have to believe 🙂

Braden & I met through mutual friends and went on a blind date…but it wasn’t that simple 😉

I was having dinner with one of my best friends Jessie, one night & we were talking about how she & her husband Eric had met. Jessie told me she wrote her “Letter to God’ prior to meeting Eric…and he was every word she wrote & everything she ever wanted. She told me to write one too.

So that Sunday, August 12th 2012, on a bench under a tree right outside of my church…I began to write my “Letter to God” asking Him for …Braden.

So as things so often do…they came full circle one day. Jessie is a notorious matchmaker…so when she met Eric’s friend Braden at the Superbowl, she knew she had to find him a good girl. So she tried to set him up with Jennifer Wayne, one of my best friends, who actually was a bridesmaid in our wedding lol Jennifer explained to Jessie she had just fallen in love & to set Braden up with our other friend, Caroline Cutbirth haha they went on a date & weren’t meant to be. Long story short (too late 🙂 I was with Caroline & Jennifer one night & Caroline showed me Braden’s picture & told me Jessie set her up with him & I said “Tell her he’s mine ;)” With Caroline & Jessie passing Braden around like a piece of meat & “forcing” him to take me out …he really didn’t have a choice 😉

Our first date was in Nashville on April 26th, 2013. Braden flew from NYC to Nashville on a rainy Friday night on his way back to California ~ he had never done anything like this before. He hired a driver because he didn’t know the area well. He knocked on my door, I opened it & saw him for the first time…I knew. It felt like I was walking towards my home when I walked out of my home towards him. We got in the car & it started…I unbuttoned his “Cali surfer style” top button & said “No…we don’t wear it like that in Nashville” haha & shocklingly…he didn’t run. The driver however looked in the rear view mirror & said “Anytime you want your {emergency escape} code word…” We laughed. We weren’t going anywhere 😉

He took me to dinner at an amazing restaurant in East Nashville called The Holland House. He was so charming, funny & paid attention to every little detail. The food came, he took my hands & bowed his head & said grace. Thump. Done. If I didn’t already know he was the one…I would’ve known then. Then he kissed me…that was it for me.

Our first date – The Holland House – Nashville, TN

Neither one of us wanted the date to end so we decided to go back to his room at The Hermitage Hotel & watch a movie. Now, being the good southern girl that I am I have to tell you ladies that {we just kissed}! Haha I’ve never kissed a guy on the first date but I couldn’t help it with Braden. He was my soulmate. I always tell all my ladies to be just that…a lady.

“Don’t give a boy your body until he takes your hand”.

So we kissed & talked & fell. Braden had an early flight back to California in the morning so he told me to sleep in, order room service & the driver “Rick” from last night would take me home when I was ready. He kissed me goodbye & I felt like something was missing when he left. When Rick picked me up & asked me how the date went, I said “I’m going to marry him” Rick laughed but I’m pretty sure he thought I was fit for a straight jacket 😉

Braden courted me for 3 amazing months full of a lifetime worth of memories. He was everything in my “Letter to God” right down to the last detail. He said I was everything he dreamt of and prayed he would find. On our 3rd monthiversary, Braden took me back to that Nashville bench, under the tree outside my church where I wrote my letter to God, and asked if I would wake up to him every day for the rest of our lives & be his wife. It was the most magical, surreal, full circle, romantic moment. I said YES!

Braden & I road tripped across the country from Nashville, Tennessee to Orange County, California to move me out & blend our country-coastal lifestyles together. We planned our wedding & Italian honeymoon from across the country in 3 months.

Our rehearsal dinner ~ The Holland House

Mom & Dad Dahl hosted our rehearsal dinner with our family & bridal party at the same restaurant we went on our first date & the night of Braden’s proposal…The Holland House.

And in true romantic, sentimental fashion… Braden surprised me & hired Rick, the driver from our first date, to drive us on our wedding day & reserved the same exact room at The Hermitage Hotel from our first date for our wedding night. We were married 6 months after our first date in Nashville, November 1st, 2013 on a beautiful 1830’s Antebellum Farm Estate in an open-air cathedral ceremony. He made all my dreams come true & made me the happiest girl in the world. He’s my lobster.

So dahls! The moral of this story is…write your “Letter to God” now! Be super specific about what you want in your soulmate, down to the detail. Read that letter now & then, pray and… believe. God really answers prayers. Trust Him.

Our engagement shoot – Historic Cedarwood – Nashville, TN Photo by Ace Photography

I want reports so I can keep y’all in my prayers too.

Xoxo

ND