How We Met
Angie and I have the pleasure to say we are college sweethearts! We both met while attending the University of Colorado at Boulder and ironically enough, had CU-Boulder as our dream school growing up. Angie and I officially said our first words to each other at a birthday party my fraternity brothers had for me. Not having known each other at all before that moment, we had caught eyes a few times earlier that night and somehow made our way to each other through a “take a drink with the birthday boy” toast.
An introduction led to a night-long conversation of getting to know each other from what our major was and where we were from to deeper conversations about our families and what it meant to go to college. But we also laughed and talked smack to each other about everything as if we had known each other for years. Once she decided to leave that night, I was just left in awe by Angie’s intelligence and charisma and knew that somehow, we would come to speak again.
Well, life comes at you fast; I woke up the next morning still thinking about that girl that had quite literally swept me off my toes the night before and a quick glance at my phone revealed a few unexpected yet pleasant notifications:Facebook: Angie has requested to be your friend Instagram: Angie has requested to follow you. Some will say Angie made the first move, some will say I made the first move. Angie will take full credit for making us happen, but I…I leave it up for debate, I mean those friend requests don’t accept themselves!
How They Asked
Well Angie and I had been together for a little over 5 years and would have conversations about taking the next step frequently, but I would never commit to a date or a timeline, I wanted to keep it completely ambiguous. Ideally, I wanted her to have no idea when it was happening and loved the element of surprise and shock when it came to a proposal.
Phase I: The Location CU-Boulder was a special place for us; I mean it was ironically our dream school growing up and the fact that we had met there meant a lot to us. Boulder, CO is also beautiful and majestic, if you have ever been, you will know what I am talking about. You are at the foot of the Rocky Mountains and have the backdrop of the flatirons, the rock formations along the mountain, that tower over the city to give it an unbeatable view. Naturally then, having the proposal be at CU was the obvious choice. At the football stadium, there was a new rooftop made for the games that captured an amazing view of the university and the mountains that were the perfect spot to propose to Angie. This provided an opportunity for me to capture my theme for the proposal, right where it all started. After reaching out to stadium services, they were able to accommodate my request, and also let me use the jumbotron with a graphic, which I very happily accepted.
Phase II: The StrategyBut going along with my initial plan, I had to make sure she had no idea that I was going to propose to her, which presented challenges in itself given she also worked at the university and was taking classes for her master’s degree. Luckily, I had a “mole” as they call it in the movies… her younger brother Jr. Jr was a freshman at CU and actually lived with Angie in off-campus housing which provided me someone who was always on the inside and could influence actions just based on the fact that they were siblings. With that, I reached out to my fraternity brother and good friend Joe who works at the University and who was also Jr’s advisor at the school. The plan was to say that his program was doing a video series for incoming students about the impact having an older sibling that went to CU has on an incoming freshman. Obvious not an actual event, Joe crafted an email that (un)officially invited Angie and Jr to be a part of this series which would require a formal interview that would be shot and recorded to be disbursed to students and that would be held at none other than the rooftop at the stadium. Angie needed to “RSVP” and commit to the time and date, and with Jr’s influence, she accepted. So that confirmed that Angie would be at the rooftop on 10/3 at 3 pm without her even suspecting that this was actually a proposal.
Phase III: The ExecutionIn my conversations with Angie about our next step, she always told me that she wanted me to propose with nobody else present and wanted it to be a special moment between her and me. So naturally, I completely went against this request and decided I wanted to share the moment with her family and my present. My reasoning for that was that it was such a breathtaking location and such a special moment for us that not sharing it with the people we are closest with would be such a disservice. The location also lent itself nicely to having our families there, but not. On the rooftop, there is a section that has a bar and seating that has windows that you can see out of but can’t see in.
So, I would be doing my thing outside and they would be able to look out, but Angie would not be able to look in and see them. On the day of, Angie and her brother showed up about 30 minutes before the “interview” and my family and hers were there an hour prior to that to make sure everyone was in place. There was a person downstairs at the elevator that would allow one person in the elevator at a time and had Jr go first so he can go in with his family and Angie went in last. Once she got up to the top floor, she followed the direction of the hallway to the outside where I was waiting at the end of a “black carpet”. The moment she saw me, she started balling, and as she walked closer, she saw the jumbotron saying “Angie, will you marry me” and started crying even more.
she got to me, she heard the music playing and I asked her to dance with me to our favorite Mexican song. As she is still crying, we are dancing alone, on the rooftop while her parents watch. The song ends and I drop down to my knee and ask her to marry me. Of course, given our smack-talking ways, Angie responds and says, “Can I think about it?” and laughs and says yes! I waited a few minutes of us absorbing that moment and then called the family over, led by her two younger siblings holding engagement ring balloons ready to congratulate their sister. That was an amazing experience to share with Angie that went even better than expected and we are looking to tie the knot in May 2021!
