Two weeks from today, I will be married to this man.

And it seems like just yesterday that we were out on our first date, but really it was four years and five months ago. Four years and five months since we sat across a table at a little pizza place in rural Michigan and admitted that all those French tutoring sessions and baseball playing in the arboretum maybe had ulterior motives.

A lot has happened in that time. A lot of long walks around Hillsdale, a lot of visits to Kentucky and Indiana, a lot of late night Skype conversations from Paris, a lot of trips nack and forth to DC, and finally, a lot of wandering through Eastern market and looking forward to building a home together.

And so very soon, all of this dating will be over. And all the wedding planning, ribbon tying, dress fitting, cake tasting, flower picking, decoration hanging, photo coordinating, detail arranging, and even stressing will be over too.

And something so much more wonderful will be just beginning.

(This picture is from our very first months of dating, but it is still a favorite. Now that James has Hill hair, which is to say short and clean cut, it is fun to look back at the shaggy headed boy with whom I started falling in love.)