How We Met
Over three years ago my friend, Torrie, insisted I go out with her and others for a few drinks, after all it was a Saturday night! Unfortunately, I was scheduled to babysit that night, which made me teeter between a yay and nay. Surprisingly, the parents I babysat for came home early, so I took her up on her offer. We went to a bar called Texas Arizona a few towns away in Hoboken. After having a few drinks in me and a damn good time, I noticed two guys who used to be in our circle of friends were hanging around right by us. They both were wearing matching plaid shirts, Mike in blue, and his friend in red. I said a dumb joke to them about their corny matching shirts to break the ice. Mike fell for my humor and it’s pretty much been history ever since then.
how they asked
Weeks prior to my surprise engagement, my then boyfriend, Mike, mentioned his boss wanted to go out to dinner to meet our newest and fluffy addition, Cooper. He claimed his boss had a golden retriever, Champ, and they would bring to dinner as well. That day, Mike woke up like any other lazy, rainy Saturday, claiming all he had on his to-do list was to get a lightbulb. In the meantime, I managed to clean our apartment floor to ceiling and sat down to complete my lesson plans.
Upon his return, he came back and said he was just going to relax all day until we had to leave for dinner, with a lasting reminder that we had to leave at 5:50–what? sometimes I run late. :) I sat on my bathroom counter, listening to my favorite songs while doing my hair and make up. Mike peeked in here and there and mentioned how hungry he was, and even read me the menu of the restaurant we were going to. By my surprise, I was ready to go at 5:30 and for some reason felt tingles in my stomach. From the other room, Mike assured me all was good and we would have good conversations with his boss and his wife. I caught a glimpse of Mike and noticed that he looked better than ever. He had this glow to him–which 99.9% could have been his spray tan, but I’d like to toot my own horn and believe it was from secretly knowing he would spend of the rest of his life with ME.
He requested an uber and we head down to the Hoboken Waterfront, which is minutes away from our apartment. He was holding Cooper rather tight, but I didn’t think much of it until we got to the waterfront and noticed he wouldn’t put the dog down. He claimed “he can’t wet his feet.” After walking around the waterfront, he put Cooper down and I noticed my little pup was extra jingly. I thought it could have been his new rabies tag clinging against his name tag. However, when I looked down, I noticed he had this oval shaped copper tag. I reached down to Cooper to see what it was and as I turned it around, it read “Will you marry my daddy?”
As I looked at Mike dropping down on bended knee, thinking to myself “Oh my god, this is really happening!!?” a stranger came up to us and mentioned, a guy [pointing to an obstructed area] was taking pictures of us–later found out was Mike’s brother. Mike assured the strange man that all was good and continued his proposal–which turned out to be almost 2 minutes of the sweetest words ever spoken!
He put a (beautiful cushion cut diamond) ring on it and all of a sudden both sets of our immediate family ran over. After hugs, kisses and tears, Mike pulled me aside to show me a 7 minute video montage of us since day one to date. Isn’t he such a babe?
After, he and I went to a local bar to have a celebratory drink together. He told me the whole timeline of his proposal planning. Fake work meetings, fake early days at work, fake working-from-home-days, too! Oh, and his bosses Golden Retriever, Champ–ya know, the one we talked about all week??–doesn’t even exist! We called an Uber and this very sweet lady, eating Popeyes, picked up us and instantly got pulled over–but we’re not going to talk about it! Moments later, we made it back to our apartment, where we were greeted by our immediate families, both sets of our closest friends and engagement decorations on every square inch of our home. It was such a special moment! Ironically enough, Mike always told me fairytales don’t exist, but little does he know, they did October 1st 2016! I am so excited I get to get to marry the man of my dreams!