How We Met
When we were 10 years old our brothers played on the same summer baseball team. During the summers of those next few years, we became friends and would run around the baseball park together.
We stayed friends but it wasn’t until junior year of high school that we had our first date! He picked me up and took me to my favorite ice cream spot in our hometown where we sat and talked for almost three hours. One of my friends happened to be there as well and snapped a pic of us there (nervously far apart…hahaha). The rest is history!
How They Asked
Since Joe is in the military, our time together is few and far in between. Because of this, I was pretty suspicious of when he might propose. He was visiting me at school in Alabama for a couple of weeks and wanted us to go home to Indiana for a weekend to visit our families. His family was traveling from Minnesota to visit him and coincidentally, many of my high school friends were in town as well.
I was definitely suspicious that he was going to propose considering so many people we loved were all in one place, but he threw me off by saying that we were going to dinner for his older brother and sister-in-law to make an “announcement” aka, I thought they were pregnant!!! I was thinking there was no way he would propose if it meant ruining their special moment…little did I know at the time that was just a cover-up!
The night before he proposed, it was zero degrees in Indiana and he let me wear his jacket that whole evening. I had absolutely no idea while wearing it, but the ring was in the jacket pocket the entire time! He even took a picture of me sleeping in the car with him holding the ring out right in front of me.
The next day, Joe told me he was hungry and wanted to get ice cream before we met everyone for dinner. He took me to Handel’s, my favorite ice cream spot + the place where we had our first date. By then I was super suspicious but also confused because he didn’t seem nervous at all. We ordered our ice cream, walked around to the counter to pick it up when he grabbed my hands, told me how much he loved me, and got down on one knee. As soon as he grabbed my hands I started crying.
After he proposed, I glanced to my right to see my family, two of my best friends, as well as my mom and friend Mallory taking photos + video. Cue even more tears. Getting to share in this special moment with them was so so so precious and meant the world to me.
After we took some pictures at Handel’s and enjoyed our ice cream, we headed to dinner with what I thought was just both of our families. There, Joe had planned for an engagement party with our high school friends, our families, and my best friends from Alabama to surprise me. They drove 9 hours to be there with us on that day and it truly meant everything to me. I am so hard to surprise and this was truly the sweetest surprise and best day EVER!!! We’re getting married!!!
