Details ...
Wedding Day!
Saturday, September 29, 2018
The Couple is registered at:
(Click on the links below to go directly to their registry)
Amazon and Target.
Their Story...
Garrett Smith:
First of all, God is so good! I am extremely thankful for all that I have been blessed with and to be a part of such an amazing church and family. My journey started when my mom found Weigh Down and then joined Remnant Fellowship Church in January 2002. My dad followed soon after. I am so thankful to them for stepping away from years of false teaching—which was not putting our family in a good place—and choosing to follow the true teachings of Christ and a leadership that put the teachings into practice—giving me the opportunity to have a blessed life. We started webcasting the Church worship services while living in Texas, and then in July of 2003 my parents moved our family to Tennessee to be with the founding Church here in Nashville.
Being a part of this Church most of my life has been an amazing blessing. I’ve learned so much, but it didn’t mean that I was always putting into practice what I was taught. Through my early schooling years I was in the public school system. It was not a real problem in my spiritual life until I was in my late middle school years, and then it increased once I started high school. I really started to be pulled by things I heard and saw and slowly started being rude and disrespectful at home, along with other bad habits. It got to a point where I needed to get out of that system and my parents decided (Praise God!) to pull me out and homeschool me. They encouraged me to spend my time with a group of other kids my age who were going for it and desired to have that relationship with God more than anything. These were the influences I needed. My relationship got better, but I still didn’t get rid of everything; and it eventually turned into the situation Jesus spoke of in Matthew 12:43-45—because I did not replace bad habits with a full relationship with God, my heart was getting worse instead of better.
In the spring of 2016, God worked in me and moved on me that I needed to confess everything that I had in my heart. I was shown tremendous love and help from Church leadership, and from that point I decided to live for God wholeheartedly. From this change of heart, God allowed so much joy and so many blessings in my life. The biggest and definitely most undeserved one was that God allowed me to start my journey with Kailee Connor. I am not someone who has a lot of confidence, but God gave me so many signs and gave me all the confidence I needed. I cannot believe God chose us to be together, and that she saw me as someone worthy. What started out as long text conversations turned into hanging out together, leading to late night conversations about God, and finally … to dating.
"We have the most amazing magical life thanks to Remnant Fellowship and the teaching we receive." - Garrett
Early in the dating process, I realized just how amazing she was inside and out, and how she constantly pointed me up to God in all things. Kailee is so amazing and thoughtful, putting God first and wanting this relationship with Him in all things. I was starting to fall in love with her, and I quickly knew I wanted to marry her. God was so good through the whole process, and when I wanted to propose God knew the perfect timing for when that would take place.
The time had finally come, and I was given permission to have her hand in marriage. Now I needed to find a way to get all her family here from Florida. I was praying for the perfect timing, and one day Mrs. Sara (Kailee’s mom) called me and let me know that they would all be coming up for Pentecost—except for Kailee’s dad, or at least that’s what we told Kailee. Now I needed the perfect venue. All I ever wanted was to propose to Kailee in the forest, but was I having a hard time working out the perfect place.
Through prayer, God gave the idea of our walking trail behind our neighborhood. The trail runs through woods and trees following a creek, as well. While I walked it trying to find the perfect spot, I came across a curve in the trail with a bench. It allowed all her family to hide around the corner, and for us to feel like we were in the forest. On the day of the engagement, we got everyone together to walk the trail with Kailee while I sat there on the bench waiting for her to come. As I was sitting there, falling particles from the trees filled the air which made it look like it was snowing. When she came around the corner I got to one knee … and she said YES! God was so amazing to orchestrate the most beautiful way to propose I could have ever imagined. We have the most amazing magical life thanks to Remnant Fellowship and the teaching we receive. I know Kailee and I will never let these words fall to the ground and will strive to fight for the truth every day. I cannot wait to spend my days loving God Almighty side-by-side with Kailee.
Kailee Connor:
I was born and raised in Florida, with my dear parents James and Sara Connor, younger brother Ben, and two little sisters Ella and Mia. We were homeschooled, taught to love God, and how to appreciate all of God’s creation on the many trips we were blessed to take across the country. I grew up in church and going to Sunday school on a weekly basis. My mom made every effort she knew of to help my brother, sisters and I have a relationship with God. We did Bible studies, Bible-based homeschool curriculums. I always knew of God, but felt very distant from Him.
In my heart I knew that He wanted so much more than a book-based knowledge of him and routine nightly prayers for sweet dreams. My family spent years searching for this relationship with God from church hopping to church splits, until we entered a period entirely giving up on attending churches. During this time, my aunt, Jaime Field, had found Weigh Down, lost over 100 lbs, and was gaining a relationship with God. Shortly afterwards, she discovered the church Remnant Fellowship, and in 2010 we began to webcast the worship services from Tampa, Florida. I was 13 at the time, completely disinterested, and thinking it was yet another church and it was just another season of searching. I struggled with wanting God and a relationship with Him, but not knowing what that looked like or how to get a true connection with Him. I was entirely empty and seeking but could never see past what I wanted or what I thought needed. I spent the early part of my teenage years trying to fill up my days with whatever I pleased, all while being disrespectful, a quarrelsome and intolerable older sister, judgmental—pride ruled my desire to be in charge.
Slowly over the passing months of faithfully webcasting with my family on Wednesday nights and Saturdays, through Ms. Gwen’s sermons and the countless testimonies of adults and youth alike, I began to see a way better than my own. I saw true joy, carefree child-like hearts, trust in authorities, and completely changed lives. As Ms. Gwen said one Wednesday night, ‘Just try it for yourself and see! What do you have to lose?’. By putting in practice what I learned at Remnant Fellowship, I was told for the first time in my life that I could in fact get everything ungodly out of my heart and be entirely righteous in His eyes! My heart of stone slowly softened, God allowed me to lose 20 lbs and gain a true relationship with Him for the first time in my life! The joy filled my heart and the anger and desire to control left. The highlight of my year was getting the opportunity to gather in Nashville, TN with members from all over the world to celebrate the holy days and festivals that God established in the Old Testament.
In the summer of 2015, with the lead and direction of my sweet dad, I moved to Brentwood, TN with the Brian & Trisha Clark family at the age of 18. I am forever grateful to their family for taking me in as their own and helping me navigate and further refine and get rid of anything in my heart that hindered this true relationship with God! I gained countless friendships that I know are going to be truly lifelong because they are based on a like-minded love for God with the heart to build up His church first!
"I am so blessed to get to marry my best friend and thank God for the peace and joy that we constantly feel as the day draws nearer." - Kailee
The dearest of these friendships that God allowed me to gain in moving here, began in Fall of 2016 with Garrett Smith. In the years of getting to live with the Clarks, I remember Brian asking me who I would consider dating. And after a long pause, I said that I would consider someone like Garrett Smith, whose reputation precedes him as a God-fearing and humble hearted man. It was three months later that we began dating, and here we are today, preparing our hearts to be MARRIED! It was not without much counsel and loving direction from our families and influential leaders like David & Jennifer Martin, who spent their time with us showing us how to establish a God-centered relationship and family in the future. I learned it is most definitely about being the right person, not finding the right person that leads to a blessed relationship! In the past, I’ve had fears about what a marriage and (if God allows) starting a family would look like, but with the guidance and teachings of Ms. Gwen and this church leadership at Remnant Fellowship, I have NO fears! Only the most joyand excitement!
Garrett surprised me with the sweetest proposal in the woods! My entire family, save my dad was in town from Florida visiting for Pentecost in late May. It had briefly crossed my mind that he may propose, but quickly dismissed it since my dad wasn’t here. It was sunny Sunday morning, and we were all ready to meet Garrett and my brother Ben for brunch. My mom mentioned it would be sweet as a belated mother’s day gift to get a few pictures of the grandkids with my grandparents since they were in town. So we made a ‘quick detour’ to a local park. We skipped and laughed and took a few pictures as we walked down a path to find the ‘perfect spot’ for a group shot.
My mom asked me to go around a corner to see if it was worth going any further or if we should head back. I thought nothing of it, went around the corner, and stopped in my tracks to find Garrett sitting on a bench with a bouquet of white roses. To this day, we still don’t know what to call it, but it looked like ‘tree snow’ was falling all around us as he got down to one knee and asked if I would spend the rest of my life with him! It was the most magical moment, and the tears came as I saw all of our family, including my dad, come from the trees where they all had been hiding! We then joined 200 of our dearest friends at the precious Day family’s Mountview Estate to celebrate one of the best days of our life! I am so blessed to get to marry my best friend and thank God for the peace and joy that we constantly feel as the day draws nearer. We are so excited to be the Remnant Covenant Wedding no. 152 on September 29th!
