I have been a member of PW for a long time, but for some reason, I have never thought about creating a bio. As my date draws closer, I guess I'm inspired as I look through others' bios. My fiance is named James, and we have known each other since 1992. We have been attending the same church since then. We've been friends forever, and never looked at each other in that romantic kind of way. We both sing, so when we both joined a certain choir about 4 yeas back, we started hanging out more often. That's when we started looking at one another in a new light. 

Our wedding is August 19, 2011, and we are super excited!! Hopefully, I will be able to keep this page updated with all of my wedding things that will occur between now and August.

On Monday, 11/30/2009, my mother told me that she was going to take the kids Christmas shopping being that they wanted to buy me and James gifts this year. My girlfriend Jasmine has been having issues at work for the past few weeks. She called me stressed on Monday, 11/30/2009, and asked if I would go out to dinner with her to talk and relieve some stress. I told her Wednesday would be perfect because my mom was taking the kids Christmas shopping on Wednesday.

After waiting about an hour for her to come get me, we arrived at Olive Garden around 7:30 (our first date was at Olive Garden). We walked in and Jasmine told the host that she had a 7:30 reservation. We waited for the host to go check on our table. She came back and told us that our table was ready. Jasmine and I followed her to a room in the back of the restaurant, and when we walked in the room, everyone yelled "SURPRISE!!!!!" I was super shocked! My parents were there, James' mom and sister, my brother and sister and my nephews and nieces, along with our children. There were also two of our close friends there, Jelandre and Jasmine.

I dropped my purse and started crying. The kids came out of the corner holding a huge poster James made with pictures of us and him and the kids in the middle. One end said "Shaunnie will you marry me?", while the other end said "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22". The tears were pouring from everyone at this point, including the waitresses who were watching! Our first date was at the same Olive Garden.

James proceeded to grab my hands and tell me how much he loves me; how much he loves our kids; how much he loves my spirit. He told me how the past two years of his life have been 2 of his best years and how he thanks God for me everyday. In front of both of our families, he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said YES!

After tears, hugs and kisses were shared by everyone, dinner was served! 

Here are pictures of the poster that James made the week before he proposed. I just love it!

This was before I got there.

James showing off the ring before I got there. I heard he was SO nervous and sweating bullets before I arrived! LOL

I was so shocked I dropped my purse on the floor! It stayed there for almost 30 minutes before I remembered it was there.

We're both criers! I can only imagine what the wedding day will be like.

Of course I said yes!!

I have 3 children from a previous relationship. James is the only daddy that they know, and he has taken them on 100%. They are super excited for the wedding also.

 I had to include pics of the ring! I am so in love with it! It is a 3 carat bridge style princess cut ring. He did such a good job!

We took our engagement pictures in the fall of 2010. Our photographers are from Philly and we live in NJ. When I met them at a bridal show, I just knew that they had to be our photographers. Here are a few of the pictures they took. 

I am in love! I think that I am going to have our photographers create an album with all of our e-pics after the wedding.

So FI and I have been working like maniacs to get our STDs out. They are going out a little later than I'd like for them to, but we love them anyway! They are puzzle magnets that our stationery designer designed. We then sent them out to China to be made into puzzle manets. I have to say that I was overly pleased with the final product. We are mailing them out in cute little boxes. FI's job was to assemble the purple boxes, an my job was to glue the picture onto the silver boxes. The silver box will go inside the purple box with tissue paper as a cushion in the extra space in the purple box. It was a LOT of work! 

Here are the pictures that our stationery designer took:

Below are the pictures of us getting everythin ready:

We've seen the final sample of our invitation, and we are IN LOVE! It is exactly what we both wanted. Here are the pictures that our stationery designer took:

We have a house and I am so excited about it!! This is our first time living together in the almost 4 years we have been together. We have to fly back to NJ for the wedding, so wedding planning has been a little hectic.

We have 5 bedrooms and 4 full baths (talk about a lot of cleaning!). Pics of my new "baby" are below.

The front:

The back:

The kitchen:

Master bedroom and bathroom:

 butler's pantry in our bedroom.

Other:

 fireplace

 view of upstairs catwalk

 view from front door

 view from Master bedroom doors

 laundry room

view of both staircases

 living room/office

 deck with me and realtor on it.

patio underneath deck.

 family room

 family room view from kitchen.

 dining room.

 view of downstairs from upstairs catwalk.

 one of the bedrooms.

 another bedroom.

 one of the bathrooms.

As you can see from all of the pics I posted, I'm in LOVE with the place! Of course, we have furniture in it now, but we have a lot more decorating to do.