Wedding Crasher

A little over a year ago, Austin took one for the team and offered to ride with my sister on her road trip back to college after winter break. Volunteering to ride in the car with my sister for 20 hours speaks volumes about Austin's character, but that's another story. On their way from sunny Southern California to gray and chilly Bellingham, they stopped in Portland to recoup over night at the apartment that I shared with my boyfriend Jeremy. Jeremy hadn't spent much time with Austin prior to that visit, but he still talks about how much fun we had that night. You can read Brittany's post on oyster shooters for the whole story (http://doitforaustin.blogspot.com/2012/06/mmmtasty-but-sandy.html), but we all shared a lot of laughter that night over oysters and video game sword fighting.

Fast forward a few months...Jeremy proposed, I said "yes", and the wedding planning began. Brittany was there helping me all along the way, the perfect Maid of Honor. Jeremy and I had told her from the start that, "Of course you can bring Cole as your date" and "Sage is part of our family, you know she's invited". At some point I realized that I had forgotten to tell Britt that Austin was welcome to come. I called her right away to tell her to make sure Austin knew he was invited and that's when Britt said, "He was planning to crash the wedding anyway, but now he doesn't need to bring a lawn chair!".

When I heard about the accident-- among many other emotions--I couldn't help but selfishly think about the loss I would feel at our wedding. I knew that if Austin, Britt, Cole, and Sage were all at the wedding they would be the life of the party and they would have a great time because they were together. On wedding day there were multiple moments when I would suddenly think of Austin and how much I wished he'd been there, but here's the proof that nothing could keep him away.

We miss you Austin and I hope you were watching us from your lawn chair.

- Allison