Tricia and Drew

The day of, Drew told me we were going to drink wine and take paint lessons from Grandma Abbot, JUST THE TWO OF US. We had the entire paint studio to ourselves in Racine, WI, just up the road from my Father-In-Law-To-Be’s breakfast restaurant. I was so excited and got to work (and drink) immediately. Drew asked me to look at his painting and I was very annoyed because I was focused on my mallard duck painting. Drew can take over the rest of the story…. *Side Note: After our engagement, Drew said we were going to stop by his Dad’s restaurant to share the exciting news! I asked him if we could finish the duck painting first. He said no. Damn. Drew: Tricia and I have decided that we do not want to do gifts in our relationship and last Christmas I made sure to not give her a “gift”. I told Tricia that for Christmas I wanted to spend time with her and I wanted to do something she loved which was paint. I was lucky enough that my Grandma’s best friend is an artist and I recruited her to help me in the proposal. I told Tricia we were going to go to a private art class and before we went we would get pedicures and manicures. This didn’t throw up any red flags as I do enjoy a good pedicure from time to time. From there we drove up to Racine, WI where my Grandma Abbott was waiting for us at the Racine Arts Council. The gallery was only open for our night together. After about five minutes I gave Grandma Abbott the signal that she should go find a supply in the back she forgot. Prior to this date Grandma Abbott had painted on a piece of glass two birds kissing with the words “Will you marry me?” on it. I asked Tricia to come look at my painting and revealed the question. Honestly, I thought I would be calm and cool but got very nervous and wound up just getting down on one knee to ask Tricia to marry me. She thankfully said YES! This was the first surprise of the night for Tricia. My soon to be sister-in-law is a photographer and was hiding to capture all of the pictures of our engagement. One the initial shock of our engagement wore off we had dresses for Tricia to change in to. I told her that we were going to her mom’s to celebrate with our families, but my dad had a company party at his restaurant down the street so we needed to stop there first. Because of the company party he would not be able to be there to celebrate with our family. I lead Tricia into the restaurant where over 100 family and friends were waiting to celebrate our engagement. It was truly one of the best days of my life and I am very lucky to have such amazing family and friends who helped me pull of an amazing surprise engagement and party!