How We Met
Scott and I both went to Gonzaga University (Go Zags!) and we ended up living across the courtyard from each other. So, naturally, we met on a dating app. We matched one night in October after I noticed he had lyrics from a Fall Out Boy song on his profile. Since I’m all about cheesy pickup lines, I started the conversation with “You had me at Fall Out Boy” and things were going really well. It was easy to carry on a conversation and we were both pretty smitten. Then, Scott told me he had to go do some Chemistry homework. Me, a girl who never really did her homework in college, thought that this meant he was not interested. Little did I know, he was just a nerd. So, I deleted the app, much to his dismay. March rolls around and I saw him at our school gym. I got butterflies and decided I needed to try again. That night, I added him on Facebook. It took him a while to respond (he was probably doing homework or something nerdy like that..), but eventually he messaged me as soon as he accepted my request. We talked all night and the next day. The following night, I had talked about how much laundry I had to do and he suggested he could help me since we had a community laundry room. So, our first date was doing laundry together. It was perfect. From then on, we were pretty inseparable. After I graduated, I moved back home and we had to do some long-distance (since he was a baby and he had one more year of college left). We made it through and once he graduated we moved to Oregon with our first child (a Shih Tzu puppy) and we’ve been taking on the world ever since.
How They Asked
My older sister suggested we have a “sister day” since we had not seen each other in a long time. She wanted to go get our nails done and eat some pizza, like sisters do, and then wanted to get our photo taken with Santa as a funny gift for our parents. So, we had to get all dressed up for the photo. Throughout the day, Scott had been sending me photos of our two pups because I always miss them when I am away. After our sister’s day, we had planned on meeting our significant others at Applebee’s for dinner. But, before we did that, we had to go pick her husband up from the Moda Center where he had been working on a project for the Portland Trailblazers. This was not unusual because he was always working on projects, so I did not think anything of it.
Once we got to the Moda Center, my sister’s husband called and asked us to go to one of the suites in order to see if the audio was working for the jumbotron video he had been working on. The video started with a countdown from 15 and when it got to 8, the 8 turned sideways to make an infinity sign (Scott and I always say “I love you sideways eight”) but I still had no idea what was going on. Suddenly, a photo of us popped up onto the jumbotron and our song, The End of All Things by Panic! At the Disco, I started playing. I immediately burst into tears and knew exactly what was happening. A short video played about everything we have been through together. The video ended saying, “You have done everything for me, but I need you to do one more thing… Meet me in Suite 32”. I ran as fast as I could, in heels, down the hall which was covered in rose petals. When I got to Suite 32, there was a photo-booth/comic book collage of our pups on the door. The photo included a conversation between our pups asking where their dad was and saying he had something to ask me.
I opened the door to find rose petals and candles everywhere. Scott was down on one knee in front of a backdrop of lights that looked like stars. At this point, I could not control my tears. I was shaking. We really had been talking about this moment for so long and it was finally happening. Neither of us remembers his speech, but I’m sure it was a good one. After I said yes, I realized there was snow coming from the top of the suite. He bought a snow machine because I had been missing the Washington snow. A snow machine! It was beautiful. And, he had found a way to get my favorite photographer to come down from Washington to capture all of it.
As if it couldn’t get any better, he also designed a gluten-free cake made by Kyra’s Bakeshop in Lake Oswego that read “Team Tay” which is what we call ourselves (his last name is Taylor and mine will be, too!). I had joked about wanting a cake at our engagement and he remembered. It was absolutely delicious. We then toasted to our proposal with one of our favorite drinks, Ruby Red Squirt, out of a couple of Gonzaga University Champagne glasses. I could not have asked for a better proposal and I cannot wait to see what our wedding entails.
