{T.I.L. #14: Valentine's Edition}

Well, well, well...it's the day of love. I just came back from the wedding of one of my best guy friends and it was in the most adorable white chapel with chippy wood and layered whites. {I've got some pikkies to show for another day.} What a great way to celebrate Valentine's Day!

And tonight I'm going to see Mr. Darcy fight off some bad guys while looking dapper.as.hell in Kingsman. Can't wait.

Since I gave Mr. Darcy, the peacock of all peacocks, the nod last year on V-day, I thought I'd give the runner-up title to my next favorite leading male in Jane Austen's world:

Only it turns out the Mr. Knightley has possibly surpassed Darcy as top peacock in my esteem. Gasp! Whaaat?

I know, right?! Here's my thought process {and I realize all this is completely fictional but alas, I care not. When you are friends with me, you are friends with all of me, even the crazy.}

When I read Emma by Jane Austen, I really enjoyed the book and the characters. However, Emma is kind of unlikable as a person and probably has more similarities to myself than I care to admit. I had also already seen the movie before reading the book, so the adaptation somewhat colored my reading (I try to always read the book first!)
 
When I watched the movie, I enjoyed this Mr. Knightley:

But something about his acting didn't grab Mr. Knightley's character nuances the way that *this* Knightley did:

I've always loved me some Jonny Lee Miller and really enjoyed his acting as Edmund in another Jane Austen movie. But this portrayal of Knightley really reeled me in and made me revisit his character as Jane Austen intended. 

My thoughts about what I'd love in a spouse have evolved the longer I've been single and I think this girl's article kind of sums up why I may love Knightley's character more than Darcy now. 

We all like to think we can get the reformed bad boy (and I know many are out there) but how many of us, including myself, have overlooked the genuine nice guy because he seems vanilla? I mean, I'll take vanilla if he looked like JLM as Knightley...but to Emma, he was just her friend. Until he wasn't. His character over time and true heart for people of all ages & classes won her heart and turned her eyes to him. And he changed her for the better. 

I can only pray that my future husband does the same for me (let's pray first that he actually exists!) I'm holding out for a guy whose character makes me want to be better as a human and as a believer.

So, here's to Mr. Knightley and all the true nice guys out there. You knew you were awesome all along...you just had to wait for the girls to stop obsessing about Darcy long enough to see where the true hype should be!