How We Met
Kait and I met on the first day of college. I was an international student and we both came early to orientation. She was one of the only people sitting in my section and we were friends from day one. We were also in 2 freshman classes together. She was my first friend in college! However, we started dating only in sophomore year. We transitioned from friends to boyfriend & girlfriend (and best friends) and finally to this stage!
how they asked
I don’t think there was one clear moment when I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her- it was a build up. She’s a very private person. It took time to peel through all the beautiful layers she had. Once I was on the inside though, it was crystal clear. When you can be your true self without even thinking of feeling judged, that’s when I knew.
I wanted the proposal to be special – hence Hawaii. Our parents and my sister flew in from NJ and India (my family is based in India) because the both of us are very close to our families, and also because I wanted to share this special day and trip with them. Our families had all met before on different vacations we planned together, so Kait thought this was just another fun family vacation with both families. I had told both families that I’d be proposing, and when I got the green light I started looking for a photographer. Kait is a blogger and I knew she’d want an engagement shoot. But I wanted to capture the raw moment – not anything planned. I found Anna Kim’s website and I was sold. She put me on to Ajja and Ajja told me about Po’olenalena beach. I saw pictures and I knew that was the spot. But there was another problem – I had a feeling Kait knew I was going to propose this trip. That’s one disadvantage of knowing someone so well – she knew that I was going to propose – and I knew that she knew I was going to. So I had to change my whole plan.
What I told Kait, since she’s a blogger, was that I found a photographer that would like to meet us and do a few test shots of us so that she could use for her blog. Kait’s blog is “Blonde Expeditions” after all, and Maui is a pretty big expedition. So a shoot of mostly her, and a few of me in the mix would add some expedition-ness to her blog. She bought it. What I told Ajja was that Kait thinks it’s a blog shoot, but that I was going to propose during the shoot and catch her off guard and surprise her. We did a few blog shoots of her, and the both of us, before I gave Ajja my cue. A few hours earlier I made up something along the lines of my stomach was hurting because Kait thought I looked nervous. So I went along with it. I bent down “in pain” and when I got up I had the ring ready. Cheesy, but if I didn’t improvise she would have caught on. It worked perfectly – so even though she knew I was going to propose during the trip, I made sure she didn’t know exactly when, and it worked. Ajja was able to capture the exact, real moment, which is just beautiful. Words to live by – if you make her cry out of joy, you did a good job!
I was nervous the entire day. Not because I was going to ask her to marry me – that was the easy part; nervous because I wanted everything to go perfectly and not ruin the surprise. Good thing I thought of stomach pain to mask the nervousness. I even said “maybe we should reschedule” to make it more real, but she asked me to “suck it up.”
See more of Kait on her blog Blonde Expeditions!