How We Met
Moses and I met the first weekend of our freshman year at Baylor University- August 18, 2011- to be exact. Baylor puts all incoming freshman into small groups called “Welcome Week” groups based on majors, so since Moses studied Communications and I studied Public Relations, Baylor fate landed us in the same class for the first six weeks of school. We had some other classes together over the course of our college years and went to the same church, but besides bonding over gas station snacks in the lobby of North Russell while studying for Christian Scriptures, nothing too exciting happened in college. One of my roommates dated (and later married) one of Moses’s roommates, so some of our mutual friends would tell Moses (unbeknownst to me) that he should ask me out, but Moses wasn’t feeling it.
Fast forward to August 2015- after graduating from Baylor in the spring, I was taking a gap year before grad school and Moses was working full-time in Waco. Some of our friends from Waco decided to move to Austin to start a church and separately invited Moses and me to join their team. We spent a lot of days running errands and planning events when we moved to Austin in the summer and the more we worked together in coffee shops, or talked about baseball, or led small group together, the more I realized how much I liked Moses!
One of our pastors, Liz, would always ask me who I liked and tried to set me up with different guys, but I would always tell her I thought Moses was cute. One weekend that fall, Moses went to Waco to help one of his friends with a proposal, but it happened to be the same weekend a Women’s Conference was happening at our church. The next day at church I helping with kids and Moses saw Liz out in the hallway. Liz asked him if he found a woman at the women’s conference and when he said no, he asked if she had anyone in mind for him. When she said yes, Moses asked if “she” was in the Kid’s Ministry room, and when Liz said yes, Moses asked if it was me. Liz replied yes and encouraged Moses to ask me on a date, which he wasn’t planning to do that day, but when just the two of us ended up having lunch at Central Market, Moses asked to take me on a date and the rest is history!
how they asked
This Thanksgiving break marked a year of dating for us and we spent the holiday with his family in Chicago. I had a feeling we would get engaged sometime before Christmas, but as the month went on, Moses would pretend to give away details, which I totally fell for. I was convinced we were getting engaged the Friday before Christmas, so much that when my best friend Lindsey came to visit me the weekend of December 15, I said, “See you next week!” to which she awkwardly replied, “…Bye!” Sundays are crazy days for us, especially Moses since he works at our church. Our Sunday routine is typically started early at church, then we eat a late lunch, then rest for the rest of the day. Sunday, December 17, was no different. After church, I had lunch with a friend and texted Moses after I dropped her off, asking if he wanted to hang out. He said yes, that he would come to my house at 3 p.m. (it was about 1:30 p.m. at this point) so I decided to call my mom and take a nap while I waited for him to come over. I called my mom and drove around while we talked (don’t worry, Mom, hands-free!) and had no idea my roommates were tracking me on Find My Friends, trying to figure out why I was at a shopping center and not home yet. When I finally arrived home and signed off with my mom, telling her I was going to take a nap, I walked inside to find my roommates all quietly sitting in the living room.
“You have a package,” they said. “What?” I replied, confused because I hadn’t ordered anything and forgot Amazon delivers in Austin on Sundays. “Yeah, it’s by the door,” they replied. I walked over to find a box with Amazon tape and a shipping label to me, from Moses. I started freaking out because I had a feeling the dress I wanted to get engaged in (I fell in love with it when I worked at Anthropologie) was in the box. Sure enough, I opened the box to find my dress (my roommates had stolen from my closet and put in the box Moses gave them), pictures of Moses & I, and a note, saying he had a surprise for me and to meet him at a park at 4:30 p.m.
My roommates helped me get ready and pass the time while I waited until I was allowed to meet Moses. I was full of excited jitters when I parked at the address he wrote on the note and saw signs saying, “Sarah, this way!” on a trail through some trees, leading to a pretty, open field area where there were sunflowers (my favorite flower) lining the path, candles, and photos of us on a table next to a couch, all under a beautiful, sweeping tree. I thought I would see Moses once I arrived, but no one was by the table. On the table was a rock from my front porch, under which Moses used to leave notes for me, and this day, there was a note instructing me to use the iPad on the table to watch videos friends and family had made me, encouraging me and telling me what they loved about me. The video made me laugh and made me cry, and Moses was the very last video, saying lots of sweet things about how our relationship, about me, and about what we had learned over the course of dating. When his video ended, Moses appeared from the trees behind the couch, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. Of course- I said YES!
From there it was a whirlwind- one of our friends from college was hiding, capturing photos of the proposal, so we had a mini-photoshoot with him before heading off to a four-course meal our friends cooked for us, and finished it up with a fun party full of people we love- including my best friend Lindsey, who drove back in that day to surprise me! Moses did an amazing job planning a thoughtful day that was better than I could have dreamed.
