How We Met
Ryan and I met in Elementary School in Grade 3. We even “dated” according to my old diary. We went to different high schools but still kept in touch, we were the best of friends. We hung out all the time, went to each others family functions, had cute little “dates” even though we did not consider them “dates”. We never actually officially dated in high school. We knew we liked each other throughout this period of time, but we never did anything about it. When I started college, I realized that he was the one I wanted to be with and when I finally confessed, he told me he didn’t want to ruin our friendship and we lost connection after that. We dated other people for a few years and rekindled our friendship in 2015, and by early 2016 we were inseparable.
how they asked
I surprised Ryan with a trip to the west coast, earlier this year. I planned all the things we were going to do, the places we definitely wanted to see while we were there since this was a bucket list trip for Ryan.
One of my long-time best friends lives out here and offered to take photos of us while we were out there telling me it was only for her portfolio. After we spent the weekend in Edmonton, she picked us up and we headed to Calgary. We planned a day in Banff. I wanted to show Ryan how beautiful the mountains were, and experience a different side of Canada. I’ve never seen him light up with excitement as we were driving down the highway towards the mountain, you can just see them slowly peaking out from behind the clouds.
Our first stop was Lake Minnewanka, we stopped along the road took some photos with the mountains in the background and took everything in. Myself being a super clumsy person and us taking photos right down by the water almost lost a shoe… but that’s a story for another day!
We moved from Minnewanka to Two Jack Lake. I’ve been out in western Canada before but seeing it again just takes your breath away over and over. You see the mountains, wildlife, the extraordinary view, feeling that nice crisp fresh air. When we got there, I still had no idea what was about to go happen. We walked along the waterline, and Nicole took us to this secluded area, it was just us and her. (You’d think I’d realize slightly what was happening, but I still had no idea.) We took a few more shots, my attention still on the view and Ryan enjoying the view.
Nicole had asked me to put my back towards Ryan. Little did I know, when I was turned around Nicole was slipping the ring(s) into Ryan’s pockets. This is where my heart started to sink a little. I then heard “okay turn around”…Ryan was down on one knee holding a bright green ring pop. He always joked about proposing with this because it’s affordable, you can have any color you want, and eat it when you’re hungry.
He handed me the ring pop and then asked if I wanted the real one. This ring was perfect, simple. Through all the tears, he then tells me he handmade the ring box that was holding it. More tears came. I honestly cried more about the box then the ring. Now thinking back to the day, there were so many signs that should’ve clicked about the proposal happening, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
