When Lauren Johnson, 23, first met Brice Cordell, 24, at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, he may have been a year older than her, but she was his boss. They both worked with the recreation department, and she was the manager.
“I worked on the gym part and he worked on the aquatics side,” she said. “We both got roped into teaching swim lessons to little kids over the summer, and we ended up getting paired together.”
That was in 2011, and after a first date at the movies, they have been paired together ever since.
“My best friend worked at an apartment complex and became friends with one of his best friends, and they wanted to set us up together, but little did they know we were already working on that ourselves,” she says. “We didn’t need them.”
The proposal
Johnson graduated from nursing school in December 2013 and moved to Nashville to join Cordell, a Goodlettsville native. She moved in with his sister and began her nursing career while he was also advancing his career, doing marketing for ServePro in White House.
And while she knew a proposal had to be coming, she was still surprised when he took her back to that old gym building at UT where they first met and asked her to marry him in the rain. But she was very sure of her answer when she said yes.
“He is just genuinely one of the sweetest, most caring people,” she says. “I had never met anyone in my life like him. He sparked my eye and is just so sweet. Anyone you meet will just tell you he is the best — he never meets a stranger and is so loving and so caring, I just knew I could not let this one go.”
Exactly nine months later, the two of them tied the knot in her hometown of Seymour, Tenn., with a ceremony at the church she attended, and a reception right next door at her family farm.
Back in Nashville, they are enjoying every minute of their lives together.
“It is awesome,” she says. “We have our first home together and we just rescued our first dog. We are loving it. It is crazy how things work out and how fast life goes.”
Ceremony snapshot
The date: May 30, 2015
The location: The ceremony was at the Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Seymour, Tenn., with a reception for 225 at her family’s farm on the adjacent property.
The attendants: The nine women were all wearing simple, short, coral peach dresses from the online boutique Mint Julep.
The dress: The bride’s gown from David’s Bridal featured lace applique over a mermaid shape, with a sweetheart neckline and delicate lace cap sleeves.
The groom: He and his groomsmen wore gray suits from Jos. A. Bank.
The flowers: The bride and her family did the flowers themselves with a combination of baby’s breath from Food City and plenty of blooms from her grandmother’s flower bed.
The food: Parton’s Barbecue in Seymour catered the reception with barbecue and all the fixings, while the bride’s aunt, a retired cake maker, crafted both the wedding cake and groom’s cake.
Music: The couple kept things traditional during the ceremony, and DJ Chris Burgess kept everyone entertained at the reception. The couple's first dance was to "Mean to Me" by Brett Eldridge.
The memories: The wedding photographer was Kelly White with White Wolfe Photographics in Seymour. The couple went on an all-inclusive honeymoon to Playa Mujeres in Mexico.Read more at:evening gowns | prom dress shops