On April 10, Leslie & Jay were married at The Dairy Barn in Fort Mill, SC! I was so excited to get to photograph at this awesome venue! And I was even more excited when I showed up and it was a perfect day! Leslie and Jay are wonderful & genuine people, and so were all of their guests, I had a great time being a part of this wedding day!
Here is how these lovebirds met: (in Leslie’s words) “I remember noticing Jay at our very first faculty meeting of the year. He was loud, snarky, and fully of himself. He was also the “me” at CATA – which is to say that he filled the role for CATA that I formerly filled at Sun Valley. I was jealous of him and unimpressed with his personality. My Sun Valley peers took me out to lunch that day to reconnect and hear all about the new school. Someone asked if there were any cute guys and I said, “Well…there’s this one guy who’s kind of cute but he’s a jackass!” That was Jay!After the first home football game, he waited around until I was done with marching band duties and asked if I wanted to go out for a bite to eat. I turned him down. He kept asking, game after game and I always said no – I was tired…my dog needed to be let out…I had an early morning the next day. He was trying to court me and I didn’t even realize it. I was so buried under trying to figure out how to run a marching band that I didn’t see the forest for the trees. I invited a group of teachers, Jay included, to my annual pumpkin carving party in October and that’s when I finally opened my eyes and saw him for who he is. He stayed until 4:30 in the morning sitting out by the bonfire with me and then came back the next day to watch football with me. That was all she wrote.We dated “under cover” for quite a while so that the kids wouldn’t be in our business and had the best time leading them on with one tall tale after another once they started to suspect something and began asking questions. We dated for just over two years before getting engaged. Once there was a ring on my finger, the cat was out of the bag and we could finally share our news with the school, which has been such a joy. Jay knows very little about the music world and I am only a novice when it comes to athletics but I think that’s part of what makes us work. He calls me “bandy” and I call him “coach” and we each love and appreciate the passion for kids and teaching that the other has, despite our different areas of expertise. Jay proposed in my driveway after a lazy Sunday afternoon of watching NFL football. He was late coming over to watch with the crew because he was at my parents’ house telling them that he was ready to propose. Then he got up to leave early because he was “tired.” I was irritated at him and was telling him so when he asked if a little gift would make it better. I told him NO and then he handed me a ring! Apparently, I’m a difficult girl to surprise ;-)As far as future plans are concerned, we are looking forward to an amazing two weeks in and around Yellowstone this June for our honeymoon. We plan to start a family in the near future and continue pouring our hearts and souls into our high school “babies” whom we love more than anything.”
