As we have been planning our wedding, we’ve been working to be very intentional about including our values throughout the entire day. You’ll notice little parts of ourselves, our relationship, and our values sprinkled in throughout the ceremony and reception. As we prepare for the big day in June, we’ve decided that we want to include all of you in our planning process, while also supporting a cause that is very important to us!
As many of you know, we both work in the special needs world with Emma working as a special education teacher and Ben working as a pediatric occupational therapist. This was something that helped us bond right away. Within this, we’ve both found a love for inclusion and the Special Olympics. Ben worked for Special Olympics Nebraska before OT school and Emma has coached several teams for Special Olympics throughout her teaching career. Last year, the two of us teamed up to coach Emma’s former high school students in a basketball tournament (in which Ben left to get coffee with Emma’s parents during a break to ask for their blessing to propose).
We want to do this wedding planning thing a little bit differently. We want YOU to help pick our first dance song and we want it to be a fundraiser for Special Olympics Colorado. We have created two separate GoFundMe’s, one for each song. We want you to take a listen to each song and donate a few dollars to the song you would like to see us dance to. Whichever song raises more money for Special Olympics Colorado will be the song we use for our first dance! Below you will find a link to each song, a little about why we picked it, and the associated fundraising link.
This is a song we’ve always loved together and it is one that ended up playing on the boat while Ben proposed. Imagine being on a sunset boat cruise, listening to reggae music and looking out at the ocean, when all of a sudden a non-reggae song you and your partner love comes on… and you STILL don’t expect a proposal. We decided on this version of the song because of Emma’s love of Luke Combs and country music, so it felt like a perfect fit when we heard him duet this rendition.
**********VOTE FOR BEYOND ON THIS PAGE**********
This song combines our shared love of Taylor Swift with our shared love of The National Parks, both of whom we have seen in concert together! On a road trip to the Grand Tetons for Ben’s friend’s wedding, this song was a soundtrack to our drive and we have loved it ever since. Now, we know what all you Swifties are thinking… “Ben, Emma… you can’t use Lover… Taylor just said it’s about denial.” Well, frankly we don’t care what Taylor says and we like it anyways.
**********VOTE FOR LOVER AT THE LINK BELOW**********
Please cast your vote with a few dollars for our first dance song with a donation to Special Olympics Colorado and be a part of making our special day even more Special!
Thank you in advance for participating in voting for our song and providing opportunities to the athletes at Special Olympics Colorado. Learn more about their programming at www.specialolympicsco.org.
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