how we met
Well, I guess you could say we met in high school. Pete and I both went to Notre Dame High School in Easton, PA. However, I was already a Junior when he first became a Freshman. I graduated in 2005, he in 2007. We knew of each other through mutual friends, but to be honest I never paid him any attention! He claims that I was his high school crush and that no other girl compared to me, I was his standard. He was friends with my younger sister and says he would always tell her to put in a good word for him… I don’t recall this much. haha!But to fast forward oh, 13 or so years… in short, I had been through a tragic circumstance with the loss of my boyfriend (soon to be fiancé) in 2013. I never thought I’d truly find anyone again and had “given up” on the love scene. It was around Christmas in 2017 when I was talking with my sister and mentioned, “if I ever did find someone again I would like them to be musically inclined.” I was kind of joking, but not really as I absolutely love music and play the piano. Well a couple days later she sent me a text saying, “ANDIE!….PETER LUNDY!” Which I replied, “Um, what?” From there we spent the next couple hours “stalking” him on instagram, he sang and played the guitar, was in the military and just so happened to be pretty cute. I suddenly became quite interested. A few days later I decided to reach out to him. I sent him a private message on instagram saying, “Peter Lundy, what’s this I hear you’re THE one?” He replied with, “Andrea Kocher, I don’t know about being capital “THE” one, but I am someone.” At the time Pete was in the military but in the process of transitioning out. We would talk for hours. First through messaging on instagram, to texting and then finally phone calls that would last all night long. It’s all history from there!
how they asked
The proposal happened on 8/15/2019. It wasn’t a complete surprise… I knew there was a ring (for various accidental reasons, I think I’ll be a detective in my next life), but that was all I knew. I didn’t know what it looked like, where it was, how much it cost, or when the proposal was going to happen. But I was excited and nervous because he’s not very good at hiding things from me. I swear I tried my absolute best to keep everything a surprise. :)Anyway, we went on a family vacation to Long Beach Island, NJ with my family – My parents, Sister and Brother-in-law, and grandparents. So all the right people were there. Apparently everyone knew this was going to happen, just didn’t know when. From what I was told – the plan was to do it on 8/13 which is Pete’s Birthday but the weather was unfortunately bad that day so it got postponed. The day it did happen went down like this-It was an absolutely gorgeous day – perfect beach weather! My family decided that we should get some nice beach pictures all dressed up after dinner, so we did. We came back to the beach front house and I decided to change (I was the ONLY one who got changed into sweatpants and a sweatshirt). My sister kept trying to get me to change back because she “wanted to take some nice pictures of the two of us.” We already did that. Pete started acting odd, him and my brother-in-law kept going up and down the steps, outside and wherever. Pete said he was going to run to the store so I said I’d go with him and can you believe it! He would not let me! I started to get very mad because I knew something was up. Anyway a few minutes later as it was just beginning to get dark he called me and asked me to go down to the beach. I got suspicious, but my family was all stone cold face not giving any clues. I began to walk over the dunes and would look back at the house and saw one by one they all started coming out on the deck, so at that point I knew. Ohhhh this could be it! Pete met me half way up the beach and began with, “you know I love you right?” He began to explain how he had this whole plan, but the plan failed! He brought me over to a bunch of boxes and bags and showed me where he had laid deck lights in the sand to spell out, “Marry Me.” He said he just wanted to buy battery operated lights but Ryan (BIL) insisted for Pete to use his “power source” from his car… well after he had it all set up he plugged in the lights which lit up for a total of 5 seconds and then went dead! So he turned to me and said, “so now I just have to do it the old fashioned way.” He got down on one knee and pulled out a little green box, opened it and said – “Andie, you know I love you so much. You are the reason I am alive today. You are my whole life and I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my entire life with you, will you marry me?” I stood there shaking, my eyes welling up with tears and of course said YES! My sister appeared from the dunes at that time and snapped some really cute pictures! My family became over joyed and we all celebrated with champagne. It was a great day! I honestly didn’t care one bit that his plan failed, it was everything I ever could have dreamed of and more. Plus, I LOVE THE RING!
