How We Met
Never did I assume I would meet the love of my life, and my future husband, on, of course, Facebook. We had a few mutual friends before we physically met but knew nothing about one another. Emmanuel had added me on Facebook as a friend, and I thought nothing of it. I left it for a few days until one night I was up editing a video in bed on my laptop. I remembered he had added me, so I clicked on his profile and stalked his photos a little until I was convinced enough that he seemed ok! I accepted his friend request, and a few minutes later he had messaged me to say hello and introduce himself. We both chatted away for a couple of hours, and Emmanuel ended the conversation with an invitation to join him for ice cream soon. I was very hesitant in going as Emmanuel was 4 years younger than me! I played hard to get (as you do) and told him that I’d think about it.
The very next day, Emmanuel was very persistent in getting a response from me about that ice cream date, so I agreed to meet him. Leading up to our first date, Emmanuel and I continued to chat over Facebook daily, getting to know another, and soon enough we were both so consumed with one another. I was so interested in knowing more about Emmanuel, he seemed so smart, attractive and like no other. I remember always thinking “he probably will let me down when I meet him in person!”
Our first date approached, and I remember feeling so nervous! I had to keep telling myself to be 100% myself and to just have fun! Emmanuel arrived at my house and had messaged me to say he was outside.
He was waiting on the passenger side for me to walk over to him so he could greet me and open the door, I was very impressed. On this day, it was 40 degrees and all I was worried about was sweating off my makeup and my hair becoming frizzy, plus my nerves were making it worse lol! I got into the car, said hello, and the first thing I had asked was if it was ok to turn the air conditioner on! I placed my sweaty palms in front of the air conditioner vents and said, “oh thank you, I’m so sorry, I get really sweaty when I’m nervous”. Emmanuel and I looked at each other, and we both laughed. It was the strangest feeling, I felt so comfortable with him from the second I saw him.
We drove to Coogee beach, got ice cream and sat on a hill overlooking the beach. We spoke for hours, and we both asked many questions. I fell in love with Emmanuel from the very beginning. He was addictive, and all I wanted to do was talk to him, be near him & learn all about him. I felt an instant connection and remember thinking how happy I would be if it worked out with him. I never in a million years thought I would be Emmanuel’s type, nor thought romance could come from meeting on Facebook. I’m so glad I accepted that friend request! Now here we are, 3 years later, 3 months off from getting married. We both cannot wait!
How They Asked
Oh, I love this story! It will never get old! For a few months, Emmanuel was trying to distract me from the thought or possibility of him proposing to me, and it worked! I was constantly bringing up proposal ideas, what ring I liked, how great it would be if we were to get married, you know, all the things women do. To completely steer the idea out of my head, Emmanuel would have many conversations with me about weddings costing so much money or wanting to wait a little longer before settling down. I remember always having to hold back my tears when he would say these things, so I slowly stopped mentioning it.
There was one occasion where we were driving somewhere, and we both got really into the conversation of marriage. Emmanuel stopped the car, held my hand and looked at me. He said “Jess, you know how much I love you, but I really don’t want to get your hopes up and disappoint you. With my position right now with my family and career life, there’s no way I can imagine proposing and getting married within the next year. Please understand, it will happen, just not right now”. I was so upset, but I said that I understood and would stop bringing things up to ease the pressure off him (so slack!).
After this talk with him, I turned away any conversations about marriage and rings and proposals, if we walked past a ring shop Emmanuel would look at me and I’d be like “No! don’t even go there!”. If we were scrolling through Instagram and anything wedding related popped up, he would look at me and try to get me to give him my thoughts and I would completely ignore it, I was too jealous to be looking at anything that made me think of the topic. Little did I know; he was planning the proposal for a couple of months during all of this (and had my ring hiding at his place!)
The week of the proposal, Emmanuel had called me on Monday and told me he planned a dinner for Saturday night, but wasn’t going to tell me where. This wasn’t out of the ordinary, as Emmanuel always loved surprising me for dinner, so I wasn’t suspicious. The day of the proposal, Saturday 7 July 2018, he asked me to be ready by 5 pm and no later which I thought was a strange and a little early for dinner, but I didn’t think much of it. He arrived at my house to pick me up at 5 pm on the dot, which also was strange because anyone that knows Emmanuel knows he is always late. We got into the car and drove to the unknown location for dinner. The whole drive, Emmanuel was so calm and himself, there were no signs of anything! I was asking him questions about the place we were heading to, I remember asking “have we been there before? Have I been there without you? Do they have steak because I am totally craving a steak right now!”
We drove for about 40 minutes, and then Emmanuel started complaining about having really bad stomach pains. He said he needed to pull over and go to the bathroom, so he stopped in a no stopping zone in a random alleyway and told me to wait for him. At this point I was getting so impatient because I was starving and he had left me for a whole 20 minutes to go to the “bathroom”, but what really happened was he received an SMS from the photographer at the proposal site saying they were running behind schedule and to delay our arrival.
Emmanuel finally got back into the car with relief saying “oh I feel so much better! I’m so hungry let’s go eat!”. We arrived at a small car park right under the Harbor Bridge, it was a beautiful view and I was so confused with which restaurant he was taking me to, there was nothing around besides grass and cars! Emmanuel parked the car and said “were a little early, do you want to walk around for a little bit and then head to the restaurant?”, in which I replied “are you kidding? It’s freezing outside, plus I’m wearing heels! Let’s just chill in the car.” Poor thing was trying so hard to get me out of the car and walk me to the proposal but I was giving him a hard time.
He convinced me to join him for a walk to the restaurant and if were early we’d have a drink at the bar. I agreed and got out of the car, noticing a whole lot of candles below the hill. He held my hand and we both slowly started walking towards the proposal. I looked at Emmanuel and said, “oh wow, I think someone is going to propose tonight, look at all those candles”. Emmanuel’s response was “oh yeah, nice” and we continued to walk closer. I asked him why we were walking that way and not to the restaurant, he said we had to walk past the set up to get to the restaurant.
We continued to approach the proposal and Emmanuel asked me my thoughts on the setup. Remembering that Emmanuel had no intention of proposing to me, and how jealous I got when others were getting proposed to, my response was “yeah, cute, don’t really like it, don’t really care. Can we eat? I’m seriously so hungry right now”. Emmanuel looked at me and said “really? what don’t you like about it?”, in which I replied, “I don’t know it just looks messy and I don’t really care about it”. He insisted that I asked the lady’s setting up for a business card, just so when our time finally came, he could contact them for the proposal set up ideas. I hesitated and said it wasn’t a good idea until a lovely lady from My Proposal Co approached us and asked if we were ok.
I was so embarrassed to be standing there on someone’s set up, and I was worried that the soon to be bride was going to show up with us just standing there. I had said to the lady “Hi! Yes, just looking at the setup, so amazing! Who did it? Do you have a business card by any chance?”. She replied and said herself and a few others own My Proposal Co and set it up and she’d be happy to grab us a card. As she walked off to grab us a card, she asked us how long we’d been dating for, I replied, “a year and a half” in which her response was “oh, the perfect time to propose!”. I looked at Emmanuel to say “yeah, I know…”
The lady handed Emmanuel a black box and a rose, which I thought was a box she kept her business cards in. I looked at Emmanuel and said, “wow that’s a really nice box to keep business cards in”. I honestly had NO idea that this whole time, the set up was for me. Emmanuel looked at me, and laughed, the exact same way he did when I held my sweaty palms in front of his air conditioner on our first date.
He grabbed my hand and walked me down the red carpet. My head was spinning, and I was so confused. Out loud I was saying“what are you doing? Emmanuel where are we going? OMG is this for me? NO! OMG!” I instantly started crying and could not believe that the moment I had dreamt of my whole life, the moment I wanted so bad, was happening. It was the most surreal and unforgettable moment.
Emmanuel got down on one knee, looked at me, and asked me to marry him. It was the best moment of my entire life, and I still can’t believe it happened.
