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I'm Aly Kirkpatrick.

I'm a wife, business owner, and photographer fueled by Dr. Pepper and anything sweet! I am married to my high school sweetheart, and love living in the Arizona desert!

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Part Three – Austin & Aly: The Story of Us

January 26, 2018

couples, personal

No one likes jumping into a movie that’s halfway over… So if you haven’t read PART ONE and PART TWO yet, do that first so you aren’t lost!

Part Three: The Story of Us

I am not a risk-taker by any means, but moving to Arizona in July 2013 was by far the riskiest thing I’ve ever done. I packed up my small little car to the edges of its seams with everything from nineteen years of life that I could fit. I backed down the driveway of my house with raindrops starting to fall on my windshield. The skies must have known how I felt, because I ugly cried for the first two and a half hours of my 1,200 mile journey. I was leaving the friends and family I cherished, the church that grew me, and the city I loved with only a purity ring on my finger.

The next year would be one of the hardest years of my life. I missed my family and I missed my friends, and I struggled to make connections in Arizona outside of my “forever boy” and his family. I cried a lot, and I felt a lot of guilt for leaving behind a little brother and sister that I would now only get to see grow up through my mom’s social media.

It was a hard year, but a growing year. I learned a lot about myself, I figured out who I was (and who I wasn’t), what I was good at, and where I wanted life to take me.

December 2014.

Austin had planned a date night for us. I should have known something was up because he planned it a week in advance, which was odd because we spent most of our evenings together anyways.

He took me to Downtown Phoenix where they had an ice skating “rink” set up in the middle of the block for Christmas. After a few laps, he took me to a quiet courtyard nearby and wanted to exchange our Christmas gifts. He opened his gift first, and then he handed me a rather large gift bag that, much to my disappointment, was too big to be a small ring box.

I started taking the tissue paper out, piece by piece.

It was the purse I had been asking for, filled with every other thing I asked for inside. How cool, I thought, he has been listening! And then I saw it at the bottom. A small gray box. I pulled it out and looked at him, trying not to be too excited in case it was a nice pair of earrings or something. He took it from my hand, got down on one knee, said some sweet things that I can’t remember (sorry babe!) and closed by asking the five most precious words. “Will you be my wife?”

This was the day that the “forever” in “forever boy” became set in stone.

He took me back to his parents house, where I found a room full of our closest friends to throw us a little engagement party. It was a night I will always remember!

We became Mr. and Mrs. on July 10, 2015 in the hot desert of Arizona. It was the best day of my life, the middle chapter of our book. My forever husband, friend, support, and lover.

The End… For now 😉 If you want a Part Four on a certain area of our life (what our first year of marriage was like or how we learned to communicate, etc), comment below and let me know!

Still craving for more? Read the anniversary letter I wrote my husband on our second wedding anniversary.

(Photos by Ashtyn Nicole Photography, edited by me! Flower Crown by Array Design)

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