How We Met
Jeremy and I first crossed paths on the 11th of February 2013 at our local train station on my very first day of university. I was standing on the platform with a friend from primary school and he walked past us. I remember thinking about how attractive he was and hoping he would be taking the same train every morning. The next day when I arrived at the station, there he was talking to my friend! It turned out that they had been to high school together. I walked over and introduced myself and felt the most immediate connection with him, I have never had so many butterflies! I found out that he was studying marine engineering at a university further along our train route than my stop so he would be on the train with me every day for at least 40 minutes – woohoo! We chatted the whole way to my stop that day but didn’t exchange numbers. The next day, however, I overslept and almost missed the train. He took this as the perfect opportunity to get my details so he could “contact me if I was late again”. He texted me as soon as I got off the train and the rest is history.
How They Asked
Jer and I had already been together for 5 and a half years so we decided to go together to our favorite jeweler to start designing a ring. I went with to narrow down a selection of stones and styles and then the final picks were left up to Jeremy. I knew that the final ring was either going to be ready just before Christmas or only after the new year, just before Jeremy was due back at sea. I figured that under these circumstances he would probably wait until he was next home from the sea, a couple of months later, to propose. Turns out, when he picked up the ring just before Christmas he was too excited to wait so he immediately began trying to figure out the best way to propose. He decided that sometime during the weekend before Christmas he would take me somewhere beautiful out in nature, maybe at the beach, to pop the question…… But the universe had other plans.
We both were in bed with food poisoning that whole weekend and even though Jeremy kept suggesting we go out for a walk somewhere I was having none of it and just wanted to stay in bed. At this point, he had to make another plan. We were scheduled to meet with two very good friends of ours, Jana and Simon, on the 26th in a small town called Vanrhynsdorp on our route to Namibia where we needed to be on the 27th to start an Orange River rafting trip. He contacted our friends and together they hatched a plan.
Once we arrived in Vanrhynsdorp Jana suggested that we take a drive up the nearby mountain pass to watch the sunset with some snacks and a bottle of wine. We all hopped in their car and headed up the pass looking for a good spot. This is when the universe almost threw another spanner into Jeremy’s plans as we almost missed the sunset while trying to find a good spot! Eventually, we decided on a spot to put down our picnic blankets and cooler box and I sat down to start pouring myself some wine.
At this point Simon needed to go fetch something from the car and Jana started taking photos of the sunset and before I could even get the wine out Jeremy was asking me to stand up and next thing he was on one knee asking me to spend forever with him, to which I obviously said yes! All the while Jana was snapping pics, which I am so grateful for! We have now been engaged for a year and in 2020 we finally get to say “I do” :D
