My 2020 Engagement
I’m Engaged!
I’m not sure where to start, but I wanted to write this blog so that everyone could hear the story of my surprise proposal. Not that I don’t enjoy telling it over and over, I just know that I keep leaving out some fun details.
I’ve always wanted to be the one that got proposed to, but I had a revelation about two months ago that really, it didn’t actually matter. It didn’t matter if I got proposed to or if I was the one doing the proposing, as long as I got to be with David. We had been together for 2 years and 8 months and I already knew that I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else. So I started planning.
Let me go ahead and tell you that it was NOT easy trying to keep this a secret while working from home—being within an earshot of David 24/7 while working from home definitely had its challenges.
Firstly, I wanted to do this the proper way and get his parents’ blessings. Which, I was able to do by pretending to be outside watering and repotting plants while he was inside. I told his mom that if I started talking to her as if she was my mom to roll with it so he wouldn’t find out. I was SUPER nervous even though I shouldn’t have been. I of course got their blessing and called my own parents to get theirs as well. This was about two months out when I first made the decision before getting rings and really this is where all the planning started.
I had his best friend help get me his ring size, which she was able to get for me in a matter of minutes without David even realizing it (thanks Sam!). I took my time looking at rings and decided to keep it simple, black tungsten bands. I figured once we got married we would pick new rings together. In retrospect of realizing how much I was stressing about the ring, thats also another thing that doesn’t matter. I think society has hyped up rings WAY too much—a months salary(for women) is just ridiculous.
When I found the bands I wanted I had them sent to a coworkers house just so David wouldn’t see the package and start asking questions.. Did I mention he is SUPPPPER nosey and LOVES ruining surprises! Love you, babe, mean it. I had to pretend to go ‘into the office’ just to go to my coworker’s house to pick the rings up.
As for the location of where I wanted to do it, I picked somewhere that I always considered a special place, even if I may not have voiced it to him. Before we moved to the mountains David surprised me with a trip to Asheville, and our very first hike was at Graveyard Fields. It’s a beautiful hike, with views of tall mountain peaks, waterfalls, and a valley/ridge. I knew that this was the place I wanted to propose to him. There’s a ‘lower falls’ and an ‘upper falls’ waterfall. At the upper you can actually climb to the very top of the falls by grabbing onto tree roots, it’s a bit strenuous but well worth it for the views. Without a doubt, I knew I wanted to propose at the top of that waterfall.
I know a lot of people take ‘engagement’ photos, which tend to be ‘afterward’ photos but I really wanted to have photos in action, to remember the proposal by—authentic. I have an amazing coworker that does photography on the side with his wife whom I was able to get to do the photos. They helped me keep the secret from David and helped plan where to stand, and where they should hide. The plan was to get David to stand at the top of the waterfall facing away towards a pine tree. I told him ‘let me get a good stoic photo of you facing away,’ it worked perfectly. Oh, speaking of perfect, that was the action word. I was supposed to say ‘that’s PERFECT’ and Ben and Mads jumped out from behind a big boulder to start taking photos as soon as David turned around.
Once David saw me kneeling down, he of course started crying, but also nodding at the same time even though I hadn’t even asked him yet. It was all so perfect. As you can see by the photos here, we got some amazing proposal shots (more to come).
It wasn’t until after the ‘cat was out of the bag’ that Ben told me David actually went to him to try and also plan a surprise proposal! They had never experienced two people trying to surprise propose to each other before. They almost contemplated keeping BOTH of us in the dark and making us both propose at the same time, but man that would have been too much work. So, I just beat David to the punch.
I know 2020 has been a really rough year for a lot of people, but for me, it’s not been that bad. I still love that we moved to the mountains, we’ve made friends and I’m at the best job I could ever want. And now, now I’m engaged to the person I love most. So there you have it, my proposal surprise story.
You being happy makes me happy!
What a great couple!