Winter Night Wedding in Texas | Rachele + Ben

This wedding makes me so unbelievably happy. Ten years ago I worked at a private school in McKinney, Texas and two of the high school students who worked with me were Ben and Rachele. The two of them and Rachele’s sister Annette had all known each other since they were kids and grown up in the same small school. While I knew them, they were all in the same friendship circle in high school and I spent many, many hours with the three of them playing games at the playground, watching movies and teaching homework to dozens of children. Over the years I’ve kept in touch with Rachele while she’s pursued dancing and costuming and theatre (any wonder we’re friends?) and is now teaching at that same school. When she contacted me and told me that she and Ben had reconnected and were getting married, I was thrilled!

I traveled back to Texas only a few days after Christmas for their wedding. The bridesmaids and groomsmen got ready at Noah’s Event Venue at Fairview and then held their nighttime ceremony at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in McKinney. Rachele’s bridesmaid all wore red dresses with fur wraps and her girls rocked 1940’s hairstyles. The winter day was cold, but full of Christmas colors and joy and laughter. Ben and Rachele are 100% my kind of people. It’s amazing to see how God has woven their story together, and I am beyond honored that I was able to be there to witness their marriage and the beginning of their life as husband and wife. Congratulations, Rachele and Ben!!

I love Rachele and Ben’s engagement story so much, I had to include it!

“He proposed on May 28, 2017 in the nature trails of Towne Lake Park in McKinney, TX. We had been planning on attending the Scarborough Renaissance Festival and I had spent the 3 weeks prior working on creating our costumes for it. Ben suggested that we do a “dry run” of our costumes to make sure that they fit and function properly prior to going to the Festival, and of course I agreed :). For our dry run we decided to go for a walk at Towne Lake and dance in the woods like we had done often since we started dating. Little did I know that he had coordinated with our friends to have the area in the woods that we typically use for dancing decorated with rose petals and streamers! When we got there, he played my favorite Irish ballad through a speaker and we danced together. Towards the end of the song he told me that he wanted to try something new and instructed me to turn around very slowly. When I turned around he was on one knee with the ring in his hand. He asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes! All of our friends had been hiding in the woods taking pictures and videoing the entire event. When I said yes they jumped out from their hiding places, surprising me, and we had an engagement party that evening!”