TAF Real World – Week #10 of 51

This blog definitely makes the TAF countdown go so much faster! Here’s Andrea for WEEK 10 (or 42 weeks until TAF!) If you notice, she also invented a new TAFword. That’s TAFmarketing at it’s finest!

Hey there, TAFtastics! I’m Andrea, and for those of you campers who don’t know me, I’m an oldie compared to all of you. Being an oldie, summer time actually means something else besides an absurdly awesome week in Manchester, Indiana for this little thing called TAF. Summer season = wedding season.

Now if you’re lucky, you’ll have the good fortune of witnessing your friends find someone they love and celebrate in the company of family and friends. I’ve been lucky enough to have gone to a few weddings this year — and I have to admit, I can’t help but think of how beautiful it all is. Weddings and all the friends, fun, and festivities — are the ultimate expression of loving out loud.

For the lucky couple, it’s a celebration of something that can be so hard to find — to be loved, appreciated, and respected by another for everything they are, everything they’re not, and everything that they’re becoming. An open declaration that each person wants to be with the other and share life’s experiences through thick and thin, as they grow as individuals and as a couple.

For the friends and family, it’s a a celebration of loving and supporting the two individuals throughout their life’s steps, and especially onto the next as they start a new life together. It’s being a loving, caring friend throughout the years, and appreciating how people change, evolve, and become stronger and better people with each step.

While weddings are certainly something unique on it’s own, I can’t help but think that it’s just so perfectly TAFtastic too. TAF teaches us to communicate openly, with love and respect for everything that the other person is and everything that they’re becoming. It teaches us to listen, learn, and understand where someone is coming from, and why they might see things in a different light than you do that isn’t necessarily wrong. It teaches us to celebrate and appreciate the way people have grown, changed, and become more impactful and compassionate leaders with each year. TAF teaches us to love each other out loud, and at a wedding — that’s exactly what makes it so beautiful. (Color me crazy, but it’s almost like an affirmation on steroids.)

But okay, enough with the gush! I’ll admit it’s even better when it’s a TAF wedding, and you’re surrounded by great friends in a dance party sesh to Bizarre Love Triangle. Besides a serious game of WOOSHA or Chubby Bunny, is there anything that could make you happier?? 🙂

Special shout-out and congratulations to Margaret & Eric for their beautiful wedding this summer + the fantastic friends that I got to surround myself with as a part of it.

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We want to hear/see/read/experience your thoughts on LOVING OUT LOUD! Whether it’s how you showed love to someone, or how someone loved on you, or maybe even both!

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