How We Met
From Scott: The first night we met was at Katie’s 19th birthday party, hosted at her apartment near our college campus. I use the term “met” loosely, as Katie was in “good spirits” by the time my friends (who knew Katie) and I arrived. One of my first interactions with her was during the game spin-the-bottle. Whenever Katie spun the bottle, I was hit with waves of anticipation, as she was going all-in on her make-out sessions. However, when the bottle finally landed on me, I got a very platonic, 1-second grandma-kiss. To say the least, I was wrecked.
A few months go by without us seeing each other, as I tend to the wounds inflicted upon my ego. However, fate intervened, as a couple of my friends wind-up taking a Sociology class that next semester that Katie is also in. As part of the class, students were required to attend film viewings outside of class; being a bored college student with too much time on his hands, I naturally accepted when my friend asked if I wanted to go with.
We started to develop a group of mutual friends through this class, and began hanging out away from school. Our group spent that entire summer together, jumping between everyone’s various houses, doing all the typical things that college juniors do.
One evening, after a late-night party at one of our friend’s houses, Katie and I decided to stay up and continue talking, long after everyone else had called it a night. We talked about anything and everything, wasting away the entire night on the back patio. We stayed up through the sunrise together, then went our separate ways back home to get some rest.
In the following weeks, I couldn’t get Katie out of my head. One day, I asked her if she wanted to bike around the city with me, which she thankfully said yes to. Point of contention, however: I contend that this was our first date, to which Katie says we were “still friends” at this point… In either case, we “made it official” ten days after this first bike ride. And it really was love at first sight for me; we wound up spending literally every single day together from this bike ride to today, apart from occasional trips back to England for Katie to visit family. We effectively moved in with each other from our first date, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
Katie and I were taking a trip to Italy with my family about three years into our relationship, and I felt this would be the perfect time to propose (Italy, Romance, Cheese, etc.). I bought the ring before we’d left, and had it ready to go… I didn’t have much of a proposal plan at this point, but figured I would know when it was “right.” Unfortunately, we were on the trip with some other family friends, so we never really had much quality alone time; I ultimately decided to hold on to the ring, and plan something really special and memorable, something worthy of Katie. It would only take me another 3+ years to accomplish it, but I feel it was worth the wait…
how they asked
From Katie: So, a long 7 years after we “made it official” my best friend from high school reconnected with me on Facebook to invite me to her wedding in Mexico! She had met the guy a few years before and wanted me to take her and her new fiancé’s engagement photos together (I’m a professional wedding photographer). I was thrilled for her, so excited to meet her new fiancé, and couldn’t wait to do their engagement photos. Scotty and I started planning for our trip to Mexico, which also corresponded with my birthday in early December. As we were planning, Scotty asked me not to plan anything for Sunday (the day after Jamie and Nik’s wedding) as he wanted to plan something fun for us to do that day, under the guise of a birthday celebration. In passing, I mentioned this to one of my coworkers, and she freaked, saying that he was definitely going to propose to me and that I should make sure I did my nails before that day. I am not a get-my-nails-done type of girl, and I laughed off my coworker’s response saying that if he was going to propose, he would have done it sometime during the last seven years. At this point, I wasn’t expecting a proposal, but knew that Scotty and I were committed to each other for the long haul regardless.
So, the Sunday of our Mexico vacation rolls around (after our friends had a totally stunning wedding on the beach) and I am faced with one of my worst nightmares… getting dressed and ready for a day of activities that I know nothing about. Scotty says “wear something comfortable, but also fancy” which doesn’t help at all. Doesn’t he know how infrequently those two things coincide in a girl’s wardrobe?
Our first activity was a private boat ride through a mangrove forest with our own personal breakfast chef on the boat with us! As we serenely wound our way through the jungle, I was losing it! My coworker was right, he was definitely going to propose. I tried to just relax and enjoy the moment, taking in all the wildlife. We saw crocodiles, tons of gorgeous fish, and hundreds of birds. As the boat-ride came to a close, I started getting all nervous and jittery waiting for the moment he was going to ask, but it didn’t happen! We got off the boat, and Scotty said we were going on to our next activity. We went to the spa in the same hotel for the most epic, 4-hour spa treatment of all time: hot and cold showers, tons of different temperatures of hot tubs, and finally a massage and full body mud mask. After that epic royalty treatment, Scotty led us to the front entrance of the hotel where he had a car waiting to take us to our next activity. We pulled up to a dark stucco building that looked just like a house, but after following a path and a staircase it opened up to a stunning little restaurant full of pools, palm trees, and gorgeous mosaic tile work. The staff led us to a private table out on the beach lit with candles and a set of metal roses that Scotty had been buying for me (1x/year) at our yearly Renaissance Festival visits for the past seven years. As I was tucking into the most delicious lobster I have ever eaten, I notice a photographer wandering around the restaurant taking photos of the staff. A few minutes later, she wanders over and says she’s taking photos for the restaurant and asks if she can take photos of our table to showcase the beach table set-up for the restaurant’s website. We say “of course” and I continue devouring my fantastic dinner. I, being a photographer, notice her light-placement, and start asking Scott about why she’s backlighting us for photos of the restaurant… He shrugs it off and tries to play cool, falling back to the “website” excuse (which, it turns out, is an excuse he’d coordinated with our photographer prior to us even leaving for Mexico). After they clear our plates, we are enjoying our amazing beach view and watching the moon rise from behind the clouds, sipping on wine in the moonlight, and Scotty starts giving me “the speech.” I’m holding back tears as he’s telling me how much he loves me, how he wants to spend our lives together, and brings another metal rose out from behind him. He goes down on one knee, and I lose it. Sobbing hysterically (and I don’t even remember if I actually said “yes”) as he gets the ring out of the metal rose container and onto my finger. After I compose myself a little, the photographer comes over to introduce herself to us and let’s me in on the secret that she was there for us the whole time! We then had a quick immediately-post-engagement photo shoot to commemorate the occasion (as well as having had the proposal itself captured).
On the plane ride back home to Colorado, we pretty much planned our whole wedding. I felt bad for the guy sitting next to us who had to tolerate all of our giddy joy for the whole 4-hour flight. But we had it all figured out by the time we touched-down, and wound up having our dream wedding 10 months later!
