We fell back into our usual patterns again after Christmas. We were busy and tired, but things were normal and that was all I could ask for. No one was being stalked, no one got kidnapped, Spencer's schedule wasn't too crazy which allowed for us to have plenty of 'family' dinners with his team and even have a shot at babysitting little Henry to give his parents a break. It went fairly well. He screamed and cried for a good half an hour after they left, but Spencer eventually managed to calm him down and it was pretty much smooth sailing after that. He fell asleep as I rocked him shortly after his evening bottle and overall the experience left us feeling confident that we would survive when we decided to have kids.

Spencer and I were in a really good place as well. Luckily nothing horrible had happened to force us to work on our internalizing vs sharing our issues problem, but we worked at it every day by being more open with the general frustrations we had in life. Even if they seemed trivial, I would tell him if I had a snotty student who got on my nerves or couldn't master a certain pose like I was trying to and he would tell me if he was annoyed by how things went down when they were solving a case or if he was struggling with any of the numerous horrible things they see every day.

We felt solid and strong and ready for anything. Which is why the little ring I had on my finger was starting to drift into my mind more often than not. I was the one who had pushed for a long engagement so we could work on our issues, but it wasn't my fault if no issues had popped up for us to really work on. I was ready to start planning a wedding. I was ready to begin the long and stressful process that ended with me being married to the love of my life.

I didn't want Spencer to think I was rushing into things though so I kept it to myself for the time being. I wasn't necessarily hiding it because I wasn't doing all that much. I just started looking up places that maybe would be nice for a wedding and doing a bit of research into what dress style I would like the most.

I was doing some of that research one day in late April, watching the show Say Yes to the Dress. It made my heart rush with excitement to see all the brides-to-be picking out their dresses and I was so wrapped up in it that I lost track of time. Usually, I turned it off and pulled out a book when I knew Spencer would be coming home, but this time I'd forgotten. I quickly reached for the remote when I heard the door open, but couldn't find it in my panic so I leapt of the couch, turning the TV off with the power button just in time for Spencer to walk in the room.

"What're you doing?" He asked, eyeing me suspiciously as I played with my hair, trying to act nonchalant.

"Nothing," I shrugged. "Just watching some TV, but the shows over now."

"So you had to launch yourself across the room to turn the TV off immediately?"

"You know how it is," I smiled. "It's easy to get sucked in when the next episode starts, I didn't want to risk it."

"It's five thirty-eight," Spencer observed, looking at his watch. "The next episode would have already started eight minutes ago or it would be thirty eight minutes in."

"I recorded it earlier," I lied, not breaking eye contact and trying to avoid all the signs that someone was lying that Spencer had taught me. "So I sped through all the commercials and it didn't take as long to watch."

He stared at me for moment, his disbelief written all over his face.

"Were you watching porn?" He asked after a minute of silence.

A laugh burst from my lips as I shook my head frantically, shocked that porn would be his first assumption.

"Porn? No, Spence, I wasn't watching porn," I giggled. "Why would you think that?"

"Because in a recent survey they found that 88 percent of people lie about watching pornography and only 8 percent of women will admit to watching it," He explained. "You're obviously embarrassed and trying to hide what you were watching so that would be my first guess."

"I watch porn sometimes if you're away for a long time," I shrugged. "I'm not embarrassed about it. We can watch it together some time if you'd like?"

I smiled as his cheeks grew pink at the suggestion.

"You do?" He asked. "Do you...do you... you know..."

"Masturbate?" I filled in the blank for him, watching his cheeks grow even pinker as my plan was working. I moved across the room, wrapping my arms around his neck as I nodded. "I do indeed, Dr. Reid. Don't you? You must get worked up sometimes when you're away for almost a week. I always wanted to suggest we use our phones to help each other out, but I never want to distract you when you're working."

Spencer swallowed hard as he took in this new information, which I'd honestly expected that he would have assumed was happening when we were apart for long periods of time, but he quickly regained his composure. Leaning down to the couch, he grabbed the remote an ease that infuriated me as my struggle to find it caused this whole mess in the first place.

"Speaking of distractions, I know exactly what you're doing right now," He informed me as he pressed the button and the TV came back to life. I buried my head in his chest as I heard the sounds of happy brides finding their prefect dress fill the room. "A wedding show? Why would you be embarrassed about this?"

I pulled away and peered up at Spencer again, biting my lip nervously.

"Because I want to get married."

I expected the confession to evoke several possible responses, but not the chuckle that fell from Spencer's lips with a look of confusion on his face.

"Of course you do, so do I," He informed me. "That's why we're engaged."

"I know, but I want to get married in the near future, not have a long engagement like we planned," I confessed before rushing to explain myself. "I know I said all that stuff about us working on our relationship and I still believe that it's important that we do, but I love you and I want to be your wife and I feel like we're really happy right now and being really honest with each other about our problems and I just don't want to wait anymore. I want to start planning our wedding."

Spencer stared at me for a moment before a smile slid onto his face.

"That's fine with me," He assured me causing me to relax in his arms now I knew he wouldn't be stressed or overwhelmed by the thought. "I never cared how long we were engaged really. I know we're not perfect and have things we need to improve, but the only reason I said I didn't care if we waited to actually get married was so you wouldn't think I was proposing to try and stop an argument."

"Really?" I asked, feeling a hopeful excitement rise inside me as Spencer nodded.

"I want to be with you for the rest of my life, there is no one else that I want to or will ever want to be with the way I want to be with you," He insisted, making my heart swell. "It doesn't matter to me whether we get married tomorrow or in fifteen years, that fact won't change."

I stared up at him, surprised to find that my eyes were welling up at his words. I loved him just the same as he loved me, but hearing him profess it in such a way was always lovely to hear.

"That's so sweet, Spence and I definitely feel the same," I assured him, stretching up to kiss him. "But could we maybe start planning it? And maybe get married in the fall if we can organize it in time?"

"If that's what you want, then of course," He smiled. "I have a feeling you've been planning it already?"

"Not really," I half-lied as my cheeks grew pink once again. "I just looked up some potential venues that we could check out and I've been looking online at a few dresses, but I haven't done any serious planning."

"Well I should be off this weekend provided no one decides to go on a murder spree in the next few days. Maybe we could go see some of these venues?"

I resisted the urge to squeal with joy as I pulled Spencer in for another kiss before running off to find my phone and call up the venues I'd found.


We set off early Sunday morning to look at the venues, Spencer driving while I rambled excitedly about the places we were going.

The first one wasn't my favourite. It was an old house in the middle of the city and I had low expectations from the start and ended up being right. It wasn't what I pictured for our big day and Spencer seemed thoroughly underwhelmed as well. My spirits stayed high though as we moved on to the next of the three places I'd picked out so far.

The Meridian House. It was an old house, built in the 1920s for some ambassador, but from the pictures I'd seen online it seemed like a strong contender. The building it's self was beautiful and it had an old grove of linden trees outside that could potentially be a nice setting if the weather held up. We were debating taking Penelope's advice and having a Halloween wedding though so the option to have the wedding inside was a necessity as the weather at the end of October was fairly unpredictable.

As soon as we walked in, I was impressed. The style of the building was beautiful and right along the lines of what I had in mind. A lady walked across the room to greet us and I smiled and swooped in to shake her hand to save Spencer the awkwardness of avoiding her touch.

"Well first off, congratulations!" She grinned. "And welcome to the Meridian House, my name's Melanie."

"Thank you," I said as I watched Spencer look around. He already seemed more impressed than he had with the last place. "I'm Mikayla and this is Spencer."

"Nice to meet you. So, have you done any research into the property?" Our guide asked. "Are there any rooms in particular you were hoping to look at?"

"I did some research," I nodded. "The library looked really promising and the grove outside. Spencer loves to read and I do as well so I thought that would be quite fitting, but we were thinking of a Halloween time wedding so the trees outside might create a nice atmosphere."

Spencer's eyebrows rose as he listened to my thoughts, having no idea how much I'd already been looking into things. I shot him a sheepish smile and hoped he wouldn't be too annoyed that I had started so much without him.

"Alright," Melanie nodded. "Those are probably the two most popular locations we have available so we can start there."

She led us down a hallway, both of our eyes roaming all around, scoping out the vibe of the place as we walked. It seemed like a lovely building. I could feel the excitement bubbling and as we turned into the library, a grin burst onto my face.

"It's beautiful," I said softly, looking around the room to take it all in. "It's almost exactly what I had in mind. Simple and classy, but with character."

"It would make a great backdrop," Spencer nodded in agreement. "And it's not too big so the room won't look empty with the small number of friends we have to invite."

I laughed at his very true statement as Melanie smiled.

"Well if I'm being honest, the smaller weddings we host are always the nicest," She told us. "When people start inviting everyone they know and all their extended family whether they care about them or not it doesn't end well."

"I can imagine," I wrinkled my nose in distaste. "We only have a small circle of friends and both of us are from small families so the guest list won't be big and it'll only be people who really want to be there."

"Wise choice," Melanie smiled as Spencer moved to look out the window. "Out there you can see the linden grove. A popular choice is to have the ceremony out there before moving in here for the reception."

"What if we did it the other way?" Spencer suggested. "We could have the ceremony in here and have the reception outside."

"That would be so nice," I agreed, my cheeks hurting from the smile I couldn't wipe of my face as I went to look out the window with him. "We could put lights in the trees or little decorations."

"It might get a bit chilly in October out there though," Melanie warned us. "But we might be able to organize heaters around the tables or we could leave the doors open to the sunroom that leads outside so people can go inside if they get cold."

"That would be perfect," I exclaimed, feeling my heart swell at it all coming together. "I can really see us getting married here, Spence. Can you?"

He nodded eagerly, smiling at my excitement as he reached for my hand.

"It does seem perfect," He agreed. "Would it be available on Halloween this year?"

"It would be," Melanie assured us. "Mikayla gave me a heads up about the date and I checked the calendar. Spring and Summer are our busiest times, we're pretty much booked solid every weekend after next week until the end of September, but after that things are pretty open."

"Yay!" I cheered, resisting the urge to jump for joy. "Can we go look outside?"

Melanie nodded and led us outside even though both of us were pretty certain already that we'd found the perfect place.


We left the Meridian House with a pep in our step. I couldn't stop gushing about everything we could do with the space and even Spencer seemed excited about it, piping in with his suggestions every now and then, but still reigning me in when my ideas got a bit too out of control.

The next and last place I'd booked for us to look at that day was a bit out of the way. It was in Baltimore, but it looked like it could be an absolutely stunning location. The George Peabody library. Spencer was already put off by the distance and time it would take to get there, but he reluctantly quieted his complaints when I insisted that it could be worth it and be the best place we'd seen all day.

And to be fair, it probably was. It was an absolutely gorgeous place and would be amazing for a wedding. I could tell by the look on Spencer's face when we walked in that he was in love, but in the end it had more negative than positive traits.

It was far away which means either our guests would have to make sure they had a designated driver or stay in hotels in Baltimore. We wanted everyone to be able to relax and enjoy the night without dreading the long trek home, but we also didn't want everyone to have to spend money on accommodation so that definitely didn't go in it's favour.

It was also a very large space. Considering our current guest list sat at about twenty not including the plus ones, it would look a bit sad in the massive room. It also wouldn't really be worth the money. Even with our small guest list, we'd have to pay the same price as someone who had two hundred guests so it would mean spending a lot of unnecessary money.

If we hadn't seen the other place first and been so smitten with it, the library probably would have been our top choice. But having another option that checked even more of our boxes for a lower price and better location, the choice was clear.

So that evening, I called up the Meridian House and booked Spencer and I to get married on October 31st 2009 and our wedding planning officially began.