How We Met
So it all began in September 2009, when I met Aaron at an engagement party. I was 17 and he was 18. The engagement party was that of mutual friends to both our parents (yet, our parents had never met eachother). My brother and Aaron’s brother are a year apart in age, so back then, only being 12 and 13, they got on like a house on fire. Aaron has a little sister who was 5 at the time and I loved kids (working in a nursery until I was 21) so was playing with her. I was making her giggle by hitting Aaron on the head with a balloon. We remained in contact and became good friends over the next few years.
Fast forward 3 years, to 2012, and Aaron was due to finish university in the March, only heading back for exams. We began ‘dating’ at the end of January and Aaron would catch the train to our home town every weekend so we could see each other. Every Sunday, when I’d drop him to the station, I would cry all the way home because I didn’t want to leave him.
On April 21st, the day before I was due to fly to Majorca for a family holiday, Aaron officially asked me to be his girlfriend.
Now, almost 6 years later, we have a gorgeous home together and a beautiful little girl who is now 8 months old.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better…
how they asked
We went to Amsterdam when I was pregnant, and loved it so much that as soon as we landed, we booked up again for the following year. We always spoke about getting married, so I knew it was on the cards, and I had a gut feeling that it may happen on our romantic trip back to Amsterdam this year (Feb 2018).
On our first night, Aaron said he had something planned, and it was a surprise. We had to get a tram, then a train, then walk for about 15 minutes. We got a little lost, and ended up on a housing estate, but eventually we got to where we needed to be.
A lit up sign above the entrance spelled out ‘Club Cinema Exclusive’, and when we walked in, a lovely man named Ramzi greeted us. The venue was empty, with a bar and a projector on the wall playing music videos. It was really sweet, and I got a little choked. Little did I know what was to come.
Ramzi disappeared and came back a few minutes later, saying he was ready for us. As we walked around the corner, there was a wall. I thought to myself ‘where on earth could we go?’. The wall was a sliding wall! Ramzi slid open the door, and my heart skipped a beat. There was a projector on the wall, reading ‘Stacey Cottrell and Aaron Gumbs’, then the music started playing ‘Bruno Mars-Marry You’ and a slideshow of all our favourite pictures together began to play. There were cinema seats either side, the aisle was candle-lit and with balloons and in the middle was a heart shape made from rose petals and candles and a bunch of roses sat in a vase in the middle. I froze and burst into tears! It took me some encouragement by Aaron to walk into the rose heart.
Aaron then got on one knee, took my hands and said how we have had some amazing times, ‘do you want to be with me forever?’, and ‘WILL YOU MARRY ME?’. Through all the tears, I managed to say YES!
The projector on the wall then said ‘Stacey, are you ready to start our next chapter?’.
We then had the whole private cinema to ourselves, watched Spider-Man Homecoming, drank Prosecco and ate food! It was the most amazing night of my life and I haven’t stopped thinking about it (or crying) since.
