Today I’m so thrilled to announce the winners of the free “Love: All There Is” photo shoot. This couple is so deserving it melts my brains. And I think you’ll agree. Here’s what Amy posted about she and Devon’s amazing (and sort of harrowing) engagement. Try not to cry like I did.
We would *love* to win this photo shoot – it would be a truly special moment for us because although we have been engaged for 4.5 years, we have yet to have an opportunity to properly celebrate our engagement…. I know. How could this happen?!
Oh boy…Deep breath…. Okay, here goes…. Devon and I were introduced through our mutual best friend – and it was pretty much love at first sight. I think a whole week passed before we said those three magic words. He inspires me to be my best self, challenges me intellectually and is smart, funny, and handsome to boot. And just like that, I’d found my life partner. I graduated from college in spring of 2007 and asked Devon to marry me in fall of 2007. He said yes! Awesome! Life was amazing and everything felt like it was were it should be.
We were both consumed with getting our careers established and needed to focus on work, so we put wedding planning on hold. No big deal. Until… Four months into our engagement I collapsed with a mystery illness that forced me to stop working (and generally stop everything else too since I required assistance just to walk from room to room). We called off our engagement party and took wedding planning off the table completely in the name of figuring out what was wrong with me. Fast forward to a year later after we had endured explorative surgery, umpteen tests and treatments, and my mother living with us (in our one bedroom apartment) for 5 months while we sorted things out and we finally got a diagnosis: Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. These illnesses are very hard for allopathic medicine to treat – we tried the traditional treatment of suppressing and managing symptoms (with no hope of actual recovery) but when I had a major relapse and my specialist shrugged his shoulders and said that I would just have to “learn to live with ups and downs” we decided to go another route.
I’m happy to report that after two and a half years of treating myself with a profound diet and detox program as well as some complimentary alternative therapies, I am getting better. I still have a ways to go, but it really *is* happening. Together, we will enjoy a future of health and happiness because we were brave enough to blaze our own trail. And when we are finally able to have a wedding, our triumph will be to know in our bones that we will love and take care of each other “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health” (though I doubt we will use those actual words) because we will have already lived through “poorer” and “sickness” and will have come out on the other side still as crazy in love with each other as we were the first night we met.
So I actually happened to meet Amy a couple months back, when the venerable Meg Keene of A Practical Wedding passed through town, and she’s as sweet and deserving of this shoot as she sounds. So let’s raise a glass for Amy and Devon, their incredible story, and the powerful bond of love they have together. Photos coming soonish!
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