March 7, 2021
Dripping Springs, Texas

Our Love Story

2008 : When We First Met

I’m sure most of you have heard our story before, but it’s my favorite story to tell so here it is again... :) 
We first met in 2008, when Brittani was 16 and Tara was 18. We had a lot of the same friends but never knew who each other were. One day, Tara was hanging out with one of our mutual friends, Shelby, when she came across a picture of Brittani on Myspace (LOL). Tara was immediately infatuated with Brittani and told Shelby, “Hey!!! Who’s this cute girl hanging out with my friends? I don’t know her. I need to know her”. Shortly after, Brittani received a text from Shelby that read, “Hey Brit, my friend Tara Voss thinks you’re really cute. You should text her”, along with a photo of Tara. I bet you all can guess what happened next. Ummm hello, duh. Brittani thought Tara was the cutest thing ever, so of course she texted her. Tara was away at college at the time, so after four months of texting back and forth and lots of late night phone calls, Tara finally came home for the summer. We spent every single waking moment together that summer (ask our parents - haha). Then, it was time for Tara to go back to school in Chicago… sad day :(

We were together for a year and a half. Lots of summers and winters spent together, weekend trips home, and Spring Breaks in Chicago. We were so head over heels crazy about each other, but you all know how young love is. One of us (*ahem* Brittani) always knew that we would end up getting married one day. The other one of us (we’ll let y’all figure out who that is) didn’t believe it would be true.

Until seven years later…

2016 : When we reconnected

One Friday afternoon in April 2016, Brittani was sitting at a red light at Kirby and Westheimer. Second car in line at the red light. Looking down at her phone while waiting for the light to turn green. (Oops, sorry Gramps.) Minding her own business………. When all of a sudden, Tara walked across the street in front of her. Brittani did a triple take to make sure that it was ACTUALLY Tara. And then sent a text to two people - her brother Blake and her good friend Mary Beth - to say “OOMMGG. I JUST SAW TARA!!!!!!” Freaking out, obviously.

Just to give a little more detail to the story -
Brittani just happened to leave work 10 minutes early that day. And Tara was supposed to be picking up supplies for work but the person she was meeting was running late, so she walked across the street to have lunch while she waited. This spot was also on the complete opposite side of town from where they both lived and spent most of their time. Total “right place, right time” kinda thing.

It took Brittani a whole week, but she finally worked up the courage to text Tara. Even after all those years, she still had her phone number memorized. (Creepy or romantic? You tell us.) She never ever stopped loving Tara and took this as a sign that they are meant to be! But also had this feeling of, “Well, we broke up for a reason. So maybe I should just leave it alone”. SO GLAD SHE IGNORED THAT FEELING. One week after Brittani saw Tara crossing the street, she sent her a text that read, “Tara! Hi! It’s Brittani. I think I saw you on Friday.” …. Tara didn’t take long to reply (like 3 minutes to be exact), but tried to play it cool… “Haha really? Where at?”

About two weeks later, we planned to hang out for the first time in seven years. We met at a local bar with one of Tara’s friends and the second that we saw each other… we both knew that we were going marry each other one day. Cliche, right? Cheesy…we know. But it’s TRUE. When you know, you just know. And in that moment, we knew that we were meant to be together for the rest of our lives.

We’ll spare all the gross, romantic, cheesy details for your sake… ;)
But long story short - the whole timing thing was only halfway on our side. After six more months of waiting, a few friendly lunch dates, and dog park hangouts… we officially began dating again on October 21, 2016

April 14, 2018

For two years, Tara had been telling me that she wanted to have a birthday party for her 29th birthday. (Why 29? I had no clue at the time…). But it was the perfect time - we had just moved into our house, Tara built a deck in the backyard, why not? I spent a few months trying to plan a perfect birthday party for her, meanwhile, she was secretly planning the most perfect proposal for me.

So, the song Watch This by Clay Walker has always been our song. I sent it to her before we even started dating and told her to listen to the lyrics because every single word reminded me of her and of our love story. Every time it would come on since we started dating, she would drop everything to ask me to dance. Whether we were at a bar, in our kitchen, or in my uncle’s driveway at a family gathering. Literally, every single time. At her birthday party on April 14, 2018, she pulled me outside onto our deck in our backyard. All of our friends and family were circled around us, so I kind of got suspicious, but my mom got everyone to start singing Happy Birthday to Tara so I didn’t think anything of it. After we were done singing, “Watch This” started playing and Tara asked me to dance. I kept questioning why everyone was watching us, but at the same time totally felt like we were the only two people there. After the song says “Just close your eyes and watch this”, Tara said “close your eyes”.  I closed my eyes, but my heart was racing so so fast and I couldn’t keep them closed! She looked at me and said “close your eyes!!!!!” I closed my eyes again, and a few moments later, she said “open”. And she was down on one knee, asking me to marry her. I think I could barely even get “yes” out and she even struggled putting the ring on my finger, because I was just shaking and crying and freaking out. Hahaha. We hugged and kissed and held each other, and then all of our friends and family came and gave us the best hugs. BEST MOMENT OF MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Tara is the most incredibly romantic person I’ve ever known. She planned our proposal for over a year. She even asked my mom and stepmom for their blessings over a year before she actually proposed. After she proposed to me is when I found out that she had been planning this for over a year. My best friend, Katelynn, made us a picture frame with three photos of us dancing to Watch This over the last year, and an empty space for this dance. Tara and Katelynn then told me there was one more surprise, took me inside to one of our guest rooms where they had THE CUTEST photo booth set up...with a “She said yes!” banner, photos of us everywhere, and cute props (my favorite was the sign that said “Future Mrs. Voss” hehe). I then found out that her plans to propose to me was also the reason she built our deck and hung string lights all in our backyard, the reason the made sure all of our best friends and family were at her birthday party, the reason she reached out to my friend Brittany weeks before to photograph this special moment, and that every single time we’ve heard “Watch This” while we were out, it’s because she would slip the DJ a few dollars to get them to play it, or make sure that she got someone to play it at a family event. It was all strategically planned. She knew that I would go running to her as soon as I heard our song. 

Tara asking me to marry her was an absolute dream come true. And I can’t wait until she’s my wife.

May 25, 2019

 There was also a second proposal!!!
So Brit and I had previously talked about her getting me an engagement ring too, but I had no clue what I wanted. I would always joke around when Beyonce’s song Single Ladies would come on and start swaying my hand to “if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it”. And she would always just say “be patient!” So I knew eventually I would get a ring but I did not know when or how.

We had our Engagement Session with our photographer in Austin back in May. On the way there, a thought briefly popped into my head, it would have been cool if I had my ring before our engagement pictures, but it was fleeting and went away. When we got to our location where we were taking our photos, our photographer, Michelle, met us at the front and said we were going to start in the greenhouse. So Brittani, and I walked towards the greenhouse and she said she was just going to be a paparazzi and get cute pictures from behind. When we stepped into the greenhouse, there was a little table in the middle with four bouquets of fresh flowers on and around it. There was also a smaller leather bound journal with some dried rose petals surrounding it. I later found out that the dried rose petals were from the very first bouquet I gave Brittani!! It was very pretty and cute. I still had no idea anything was happening and didn’t think anything of it. Brittani walked right up to the display and kept asking me “what is this?”. I just kept saying “I don’t know”. I was on the other side of the display when she had picked up the journal and I told her to stop touching that stuff because it’s not ours!!! She told me to open the journal and I said “no, you open it”. I was so confused. She asked me again, “did you do this??”… and then it kind of clicked. I said “no...did youuuuuuuuu do this?” I opened the journal to find several journal entries written by Brittani, dating back to when we first start dating again. I skimmed through the journal then when I got to the last entry, it ended with, “now turn around”… I turned around and there was my beautiful girl, in her dress, on one knee, with my ring, asking me to marry her!!!!!! It was so amazing! (Then, Blake and Katelynn popped around the corner to say hi since they helped set everything up! Hahaha.)
So I guess it’s like REALLLLLLY official now ;)

 To all of our family and friends:

We can't thank you enough for supporting us throughout the years and for joining us at our wedding.
It means the world to us for each and every one of you to be here and we can't wait to celebrate with you all!

Love,
Brittani + Tara