How We Met
In November of 2016, I was hosting a ladies’ wine night at my apartment. A mutual friend invited Nicole over with the intentions that it would turn into a one-night-stand for me. That didn’t happen, and instead, we stayed up all night talking about everything and anything. We became best friends instantly, and have been inseparable ever since.
Because we were such good friends, we were both cautious about getting into a relationship. The last thing we wanted to do was lose each other. In February we decided to become exclusive. This didn’t last long because within a month Nicole told me she loved me and that we were official.
It’s been smooth sailing ever since. We built a solid foundation for our relationship when we were just friends, as we never avoided serious topics and talked about them like they were nothing. By the time we started dating, we both knew what the other had been through in the past, and what we wanted in the future.
I knew right away that I wanted to marry her, but she said that she would be the one to propose first as she has always been more cautious than I have. It wasn’t long before we started talking about our future together, and we realized that we didn’t know where we wanted to be in 5 years or what we wanted to do, but we did know that we wanted to be together.
How They Asked
In January of 2018, Nicole proposed. Up until that point, a lot of the firsts in our relationship took place in our car. It’s where we decided to be together, where Nicole told me she loved me, and where we talked for hours and spilled our life stories. Her proposal was very personal, and (as you may have guessed) took place in our car. Once we were engaged the wedding planning began, as well as a lot of crazy things happened in our lives. My proposal was pushed to the back of my mind, and it wasn’t until I scheduled our engagement photos in October 2018 that I realized I should probably put a ring on her finger.
The wheels in my head started turning and with the help of my friend Vanessa the proposal was set in action. All it took was a cute little cabin rented off of AirB&B, Vanessa’s amazing photography skills, 31 balloons, pictures of us with my proposal written out on the back (I’ve always been more of a writer than a talker), and a few dozen cups of rose petals. I sent her out for the morning to get her nails and hair done so that we could set up, and in the mid-afternoon, she came to meet us at the cabin.
Nicole: The minute I walked into the cabin she had rented for us that night, I felt completely overwhelmed with excitement and tears instantly began pooling in my eyes. As she took me down the trail she had made, handing me photographs of us and telling me to read the back, I was overcome with nostalgia and I realized how quickly time flew by with her but I never wanted it to stop.
When we reached the end of the walkway, and she handed me the final card that read “Will you Marry Me?” I realized that no matter how much I thought about what it would be like to be asked that question, I was still completely dumbfounded by it. Reading those words, and seeing her in front of me, every single thought that I had about her leaving me vanished. She got down on one knee, and I couldn’t stop the tears.
After I took a few breaths, when I was finally able to do more than just nod my head, I quietly whispered the word “yup.” It’s as if my brain couldn’t find the perfect words to describe how what was written on the back of those photos truly made me feel. I’ve never felt this type of happiness before, to the point where my brain couldn’t even process what to say.“
