How We Met
I’ve known Will for over a decade! We met on the bus in middle school. We lived in the same neighborhood, the Enchanted Valley :) My first memory of Will was his large afro that he was VERY proud of. We chatted our way through the multiple bus rides to and from school every year and finally became good friends in high school. We started dating our senior year after Will asked so lovingly, “So, you want to make this official?”. His romantic side really didn’t show until after college…
how they asked
My best friend, Katie, invited me to go to an early movie on July 2nd.
Once we got into the theater Katie announced that she had left her purse in the bathroom and ran out of the theater, leaving me alone to continue watching the trailers. A strange trailer followed that specifically stated “Leah, look up!” which of course caught me off guard because it’s not every day that you hear your name on a big screen. So I watched a little more intently because I wanted to tell Katie all about the strange trailer when she came back. The trailer appeared to end and the screen went black. Suddenly, Will’s face appeared large on the screen!!
I didn’t know what was going on, but he was singing a beautiful original song depicting our love story and it turned into a music video. He traveled all over Wisconsin to film various verses of the song and included our families and closest friends. Will was on vocals, my dad was playing guitar, my youngest brother was playing the drums and my piano teacher was playing the piano throughout the video. It was incredible. Will sang five verses describing our whole relationship. He traveled to multiple landmarks in our relationship as he sang about our life. The chorus ties it all together highlighting our unique 16 inch height difference along with other measurements of our love. Will also brought together our friends and families to be backup dancers for a chorus. The dance was choreographed by one of my good friends from college.
The video ended with a large mosaic made up of pictures of us reading, “TURN AROUND”.
At this point I was bawling, Will was bawling and we have some nice audio of a lot of sniffling and emotional mumbling to watch over and over (watch in the video below). Will then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I exclaimed “Of course!” (as you do, if you get proposed to by your high school sweetheart).
There were a couple more surprises that morning! After Will proposed, we sat down to watch the video again – we chatted and giggled throughout. Little did I know that we were being filmed the ENTIRE time! As the video ended once again another mosaic of our faces popped up again but this time it read, “JAMAICA?”. I couldn’t believe what I was reading! I am about to graduate from pharmacy school and was hoping to go to Jamaica as a celebratory trip for being done with school. My dream vacation came early!! (listen for the squeals in the video).
Lastly, everyone who helped and was in the video ended up being at the theater waiting to surprise me once again. This is when the waterworks really started flowing. I was able to hug and THANK all of these wonderful people in my life on this special day!! Once the tissues were handed out and everyone was settled into their seats, we watched the video all together again.
Will spent a year and a half planning this proposal. He wrote an original song with lyrics, printed 200 photos and hung them up on the wall of my family cabin, traveled Wisconsin and spent numerous hours writing, practicing, planning, filming and editing. My best friend Katie also played a HUGE part in this proposal. Katie had to keep this secret for a year! She spent numerous hours writing, planning, filming and creating special personal touches to add throughout the video like the silhouette milestones of Will and my relationship that were distributed between the numerous photos.
I can’t thank them both enough for making this day so magical!!
I was in shock, full of love and so ready to start a new adventure with my love, Will Kraus.
