Ted grew up down the street from my family in McDonough, Georgia. We first met when my family went down to visit in the Summer of 2002. 14 year old Ted remembers riding 4 wheelers past us in the neighborhood while my cousin, Katie, and I were riding around on their golf cart. 14 year old me remembers going to Henry County Fun Bowl with Katie and a bunch of her friends and seeing a really cute guy there. That really cute guy happened to be Ted Hodges.
Fast forward a few years into high school and I was down visiting again. It was Thanksgiving break and Katie and her high school boyfriend planned a date to the movies. She asked if I wanted to go with them and one of her boyfriend’s friends, Ted. That night he picked Katie and I up in his Red Jeep Wrangler. We went and saw a scary movie and then came back to my Aunt and Uncle’s house to hangout above their garage. We ended the night with a kiss and a long hug goodbye. Little did we know we would have many more moments like that. The next morning we headed home. I remember crying in the back of our suburban as we drove away, feeling crushed at the realistic thought of never seeing Ted again. We became friends on MySpace and kept in touch through our Senior year of high school when he got rid of social media.
Life took us our very separate ways, but God had a greater plan all along. 14 years later, almost to the day, I got the surprise of my life. November 30, 2018 a friend request popped up on my Facebook from Ted. I texted Katie immediately to see if she knew something I didn’t. After several messages back and forth, Facetimes, phone conversations for hours and our second “first” date on December 7th, I knew this was the love that I had been praying for, I knew he was the one.
June 4th, 2019 at my parents’ house Ted asked me to love him forever. Our lives are filled with love and we are so excited to join our families and build a beautiful life together! #heartbelongstohodges
A huge part of our bucket list is to visit all 30 Major League Baseball parks in the US and Canada! Wrigley Field has been our favorite so far, but we’re really looking forward to exploring Boston and visiting Fenway Park next!
For Ted’s 31st birthday we wanted to take advantage of my flight benefits and go somewhere out of the country. It was Ted’s first time to Europe and during the summer months Delta offers a direct flight from IND to CDG so we decided on Paris!
Our trip started out perfect when we got Delta One First Class seats. It was a first for both of us! Once we landed we hit the ground running. A few hours later we checked into our AirBnB. Little did we know there was no A/C! Any other time of the year it would’ve been alright, but it was record high temps in Paris and we were miserable! Ted booked a 5 star hotel on Hotwire for a great price and we checked in thinking for sure a hotel would have A/C. Well, we were right, but it still stayed about 90 degrees in our room with the air on full blast! For the rest of the trip we would take cold showers before we ventured out in the morning and come back in the early after to take our second round of cold showers. We were so desperate!
On our last night we had plans to get some engagement photos taken at the Eiffel Tower. We got ready and headed out to the metro (we were pros at public transportation at this point), but when we got to the stop by our hotel we saw that the metro stops we needed were closed for construction. We figured we could walk, it wouldn’t take that long right? We were so wrong! And ten minutes into our walk Ted was covered in sweat! His light green shirt was now dark green and we were starting to get very irritable with each other, bickering with one another, which was a first for us! We went back to the hotel and changed, took an Uber to the Eiffel Tower and saved the engagement photos for when we got back!
Our romantic getaway to the City of Love was our funniest and most aggravating adventure thus far, but we had such an amazing time together (even if we were ready to come home!)
After the wedding, we will reside in our new home in Barnesville, Georgia with our beautiful girls, Zoey and Mila. We feel honored to start our lives together as a family of four and cannot wait to see what the future has in store for our little family!