How We Met
Mine and Eric’s story began before we even knew it and looking back, the big man upstairs certainly had a plan for us! For as long as I can remember, my grandparents have been close life long friends with Eric’s grandparents. My grandparents used to live in the same small town in the Rio Grande Valley as Eric’s grandparents and kept up their friendship after moving to Colorado and then back to the Texas Hill Country. Eric and I always knew of each other growing up, but I mostly knew and was friends with his two older sisters. I would see he and his sisters occasionally when they were visiting my grandparents’ ranch or I happened to go with my grandparents to see their family while on their yearly summer vacation in Concan. The older we got, Eric and I started to notice each other more. When Eric’s older sisters were married in the same year, he especially took a notice to me at their weddings and even worked up the courage to ask me to dance!
We were both living in College Station around the time of the girls’ weddings while I was at Texas A&M University and he was at Blinn College but unfortunately never ran into each other even after a few attempts to meet up. Fast forward to a couple of summers ago. Eric’s oldest sister had reached out to me and invited me to come stay with them for the weekend while they were going to be in Concan for their family vacation. I noticed that Eric stuck by my side the first night I was in Concan while we were at a Corey Morrow concert and the next day as well while we were floating the river. As families do, Eric’s family brought on the jokes and teased him in front of me about taking me out on a date. To my surprise, he did, and we had our first date that weekend at a little local restaurant in Concan called Hippie Chicks!
how they asked
This past June, my “big sis” from the professional agricultural sorority I was in at A&M was getting married in Italy. Eric and I were invited so we agreed to plan a week long vacation after the wedding. We had already been talking about marriage and planning the rest of our lives together for a few months, so the thought certainly crossed my mind that he could propose in Italy but I wasn’t expecting a proposal until Eric was closer to finishing up school. The day after the wedding (After I caught the bouquet!) we took a train to Venice where we were going to be spending the last few days of our vacation. I had been noticing the whole trip that Eric was on edge, but I didn’t think much of it since we had already gone through the headache of his luggage not making it our hotel in Lake Como for almost two days.
We weren’t ready to head back to the room yet after dinner and a bottle of wine, so I suggested that we walk to Piazza San Marco since it was close to the hotel we were staying in. One of Eric’s favorite movies is The Italian Job and we had watched it prior to coming to Italy, so I brought up that we were in the same place that the opening scene was filmed. Eric played it off like he thought he remembered Piazza San Marco from the opening scene, but wanted to walk a little ways further up ahead. Once we got out of the center of the square, Eric pulled me into a hug and said he wanted to talk to me. I again thought that he was acting weird but continued to hug him back and listen to the sweet words he was saying about us. Then he said he needed to ask me something. Right at that moment I had the “this is really happening” thought! Eric got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I was in so much shock that I kept asking if this was real and told him to hurry up and put the ring on my finger! We spent at least half an hour in the square just enjoying the moment making international calls to our parents and close family and friends to tell them the news!