How We Met
I love telling this story. Mostly because I can’t believe I met my future husband on the first day of sixth grade. Supposedly, Ian remembers when he first saw me (love at first sight, maybe?). I on the other hand don’t. Fast-forward six months later, my parents decided to move to Pennsylvania. We packed up, said goodbye and left to start a new chapter in life. I remember the first day at my new school. It was horrible (as any twelve-year-old newbie would think.). When I got home, I immediately jumped on AOL Instant Messenger to talk to my friends back home. Before I could get a message out, I got a message from Ian asking how my first day was. We talked until my mom made me get off. This friendship continued for ten years! We were each other’s best friend. When I would go back “home” to visit, we always hung out. We went bowling, played laser tag, mini golf, went to the movies, you name it. He always made an effort to see me one way or another. As we got older, we dated other people but continued that long distance best friend friendship. After high school, Ian joined the Marine Corps and I went off to college. We talked when we could, but it was very limited. During this time, Ian expressed how he really felt about me all these years. At that time, I did not reciprocate those feelings. We lost touch for about a year. He was still deployed when I decided to reach out to him via Facebook Messenger. We decided to meet up and talk when he returned home on leave. We eventually met up and decided to be friends again. Well… I can’t say our friendship lasted long. Mutual feelings started to develop and he was officially out of that ten-year friend zone.
How They Asked
Last February, I created a summer bucket list and wanted to go camping. I am not the outdoorsy type; I have never been, so this was a pretty big deal. We booked a four-day camping trip to Acadia National Park in Maine during September. I had a gut feeling he might propose during the trip, so I naturally got my nails done. Ian made fun of me for getting my nails done for a camping trip, so I thought maybe it wouldn’t happen. I then got my hopes up again when we stopped at a liquor store and Ian bough a massive bottle of champagne. Well guess what… I lost hope again when Ian suggested we drink the massive bottle of champagne with dinner. I guess there was nothing to celebrate other than my bravery for going camping (haha). On our third day, Ian made plans to do a sunrise hike up Cadillac Mountain. We woke up at 3:00 am and made our way to the mountain. I am usually a morning person, however, this morning I was SUPER grumpy and it was wicked cold. Once we got to the top, the wind was really ripping. Needless to say I was not in a good mood. We found a spot to sit to watch the sunrise. After thirty minutes of waiting, the sun finally started to come up. As it was rising, Ian pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. I honestly was shocked, I thought he would do it so many different times during this trip that it never crossed my mind that this would be the moment! I said “yes” after a minute of me asking him “wait, are you serious”? One of the coolest parts about this story is that there was a couple sitting right behind us that took pictures of Ian and I. They saw him pull out the ring earlier and snapped some shots of us!
