They were from different sides of the country, but their prayers were the same. They had both spent years longing to meet the person God had created for them. They watched their friends get older, get married, get pregnant, and have children. Maybe it just wasn’t in the Divine plan for them. As time went on, their hopes began to fade away.

And then they met each other by chance one warm spring in Wisconsin. It was during the Jewish spring festival of Shavuot (more familiar to the Christian tradition as Pentacost). They started out as just friends. Bethanni's mom knew it was much more than a friendship, but she stored these things up in her heart - and she waited. It would be almost a year before Bethanni and Gabriel came to the same realization.

They had been dating for only a few months when Gabriel proposed at the top of a snowy cliff in Minnesota. Bethanni was so shocked that her knees collapsed and she fell to the ground, half buried in the snow and overwhelmed by adrenaline and joy. Gabriel is a man of few words, calm and private, but when he made his move it absolutely rocked her world.

They got married under the Florida skies (not in the snow!), on the first day of the Jewish month of Elul leading up to the autumn High Holidays. In Hebrew, Elul is traditionally understood to be an acronym for a famous phrase from the Song of Solomon: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Could there be a more perfect date to get married on?

They fasted and immersed themselves in water to spiritually and ritually purify themselves before the wedding. Gabriel was carried on the shoulders of the groomsmen and the elders, with much singing and shouting, to meet his bride. They signed their ketubah (the marriage covenant) and made their way outside for their civil ceremony. It had been raining for two hours, but suddenly the storm clouds broke apart and the sun came out over the chuppah. An intimate dinner followed, with their closest families and a few friends gathered around a giant banquet table that ran the length of the hall - just how Bethanni had imagined her wedding day being since she was a little girl! Blessings, traditional readings, songs and amazing stories echoed through the building and outside into the dark, tropical night.

Gabe and Bethanni, we can't tell you what an honor it was to be given a place at your banquet table. May the Lord bless your home with joy, with many children, and with so much shalom!