How We met
Becky’s Perspective: I can remember vividly the day I met Matt. We were with a bunch of mutual friends at a bar for Sunday football. Only back then, Matt went by Tex. I had just moved to Lake Tahoe and I was looking for a job working with kids, and Matt worked at the boys and girls club. So we were introduced in the hopes that he might be able to help get me hired. His laugh and his smile were the first things I noticed, aside from his hair -which was gorgeous, dark, and at the time, longer than mine. He was tall and handsome, and his personality was big and bright and infectiously warm and I knew in that moment, that I wanted him to be a part of my life, and I wanted to be a part of his. Matt did end up getting me a job, and every day I got to see him in a way that most people didn’t. I was with someone else at the time, so we had a friendship that developed slowly.
We lived just down the street from each other so we walked to and from work together on most days. After 2 years of getting to know each other (almost too well) we started dating. Our first date was on St. Patrick’s day, which started by chaperoning a group of 30 kids for a day of snowboarding at our local mountain, and ended (out of necessity) at a bar for green beers and Irish car bombs. If that’s not the most romantic first date, I don’t want to know what is. It didn’t take long for us to fall pretty hard. Almost 6 years from the day we met, and here we are living in Matt’s home state of Texas. I consider myself insanely lucky to be spending the rest of my life with him and that bellowing laugh that makes me want to laugh, and his thick dark hair, and his larger-than-life personality that had me from the start.
how they asked
Matt’s Perspective: We were living around North Lake Tahoe at the time, and at the beginning of the summer I found out Rebecca had never been boating on the lake. In that moment I knew what I was going to do, we were leaving Tahoe at the end of the summer. I already had the handcrafted ring in the works by my uncle at Balser Jewelry, and was waiting on its arrival. I had talked to a lot of our friends around town to help me pull this off a couple months in advance. I would need help with photos (Thanks Britt and Drew), transportation, and of course the big surprise. I still can’t believe that everyone kept it a secret, it felt like the whole town knew (which come to find out….they did). She made some good guesses over the course of a few months that something was going on, but I was able to throw her off the trail. The day came and I was a nervous wreck.
It had been raining for the first time all summer the two days before, but we woke up to a clear, perfect day. We had plans to go “boating” with some friends. We met them at the marina. Our good friend was our captain and gave us a wonderful tour of Lake Tahoe (Thanks Alejandro) before taking us to beautiful Emerald Bay. We were able to pull right up on to Fannette Island, the only island on Lake Tahoe, where the ruins of a small stone building from the 1920’s called the Tea House stands.
We walked around the small island, leaving my friends anxious as to when and where I would get on one knee. I grabbed Rebecca by the hand and walked her to the middle of the island and give her a kiss.
As we pull away from each other I slid the ring box in her hand… she didn’t notice. I squeezed my hand tightly over hers, and she looked down to find something in her hand.
It hits her, she realized what was going on and the biggest smile/cry face washes over her. “Rebecca, these past 4 years have been the best I have ever known” I say as I get on one knee.
Then I blacked out from the adrenaline and it is still to this day is the only thing I remember saying, but she says yes with tears down her face.
Our friends cheered and strangers were clapping as we yelled to our captain on the boat, “she said YES!!” and it echoed off the bay.
