How We Met
We had 2 mutual friends that are both equally the reason why we met! One of them was hosting an Instagram meet-up at a local pool (meets were really popular at that time). The other friend invited me to the meet since we had been doing some modeling shoots over the summer. I was introduced to a guy named @hi_tola who I realized was a familiar name from IG (I wasn’t a fan of him at that time!) Nevertheless, we all ended up hanging out that day and had a blast. After the meet was over, I and some of the girls went to eat and somehow Tola was invited, showed up and sat next to me. We ended up becoming good friends over the next few months and the rest was history!
How They Asked
We had been dating over 4 years and at this point, I knew a proposal would be coming any day now since we had talked about it and looked at rings quite a few times. I also knew that Tola would do everything in his power to make it a surprise. Tola does photography on the side and had told me a few weeks before that he would be doing a job where we would need to be in the photos/video (this was not uncommon). I said ok and asked what I should wear. He told me to wear a cute dress and we could go out on a dinner date afterward since we would be on the beach and we don’t go there often.
When we got to the beach, it was about an hour before sunset. We searched around for the right place to take the drone shots, but just his luck, the drone would not take off because we were in a no-fly zone. He started to panic a little and said we might just have to do it tomorrow instead, but continued to keep looking for a place where the drone would take off. He said it looked like the map showed it was clear by the rocks/water. As we got closer to the water, there was the most beautiful spread with a sign saying “I found the one that my soul loves.” I immediately teared up as I had a feeling it might be for me. But we kept walking past it and he didn’t say anything, so I had to play it off in case it wasn’t mine!
I started taking photos of the ocean and cruise ships while he kept trying to get the drone to work. He then came over and said, “this is for you.” He walked me back over to the spread and handed me a message in a bottle. It was a poem with the letters W-I-L-L Y-O-U M-A-R-R-Y M-E down the side and each letter had a sentence next to it. After that, he got down on one knee and popped the question. When I looked up, all of our siblings and friends were standing there to celebrate with us. They had champagne ready for us to toast and had a dinner reservation waiting for us at a restaurant nearby. The proposal was literally perfect- it still feels like it was all a dream. I will remember this magical day forever.
