How We Met
Well for starters Neel and I went to the same summer camp, except we went to different sessions. So we both knew of each other but never officially met. I might have thought he was super cute. We first officially met my sophomore year in college when we were introduced at a mutual friends apartment. From that day on I would always randomly see him around when he would come to my college to visit some of our mutual friends. The first night we started really talking was the last day of my junior year.
One afternoon I walked into my friends’ house and there was Neel sitting there in a blue checkered short sleeve button down. I can still picture him so vividly to this day. I still remember the instant butterflies. I was so drawn to him all I wanted to do was talk to him and be around him. My friends still tell me that they have never seen me as smitten with anyone as I was that day. Long story short, we spent the whole night talking until the sun came up. As someone who is very reserved and shy at first, being able to talk to him for that long and not getting bored was a big deal. From that day forward I have not stopped talking to him every day for the past 6 years.
how they asked
At the beginning of 2017, we decided we were going to take a trip to Greece in October. While planning our Greece getaway I found myself in awe of all the couples photos all over social media, and I knew I wanted to have a photo shoot of our own. I started following one photographer in particular and fell in love with his photos. I told Neel what I wanted and he agreed that it would be nice to have professional pictures in Greece since this was our first big trip together. He contacted the photographer and started talking to him for about six months before the trip. Little did I know he was planning the proposal with the photographer the whole time. Fast forward to October 2017 and we are in Santorini, Greece. Morning of the photo shoot due to a miscommunication our photographer canceled. As soon as Neel told me I thought he was joking. He knew how much I wanted a photo shoot, so I was not exactly thrilled. Poor Neel was freaking out enough that he was proposing and nothing seemed to be going right.
Eventually, after asking the photographer for an alternative, he was able to set us up with another photographer. The only issue was he was meeting this photographer at the exact same time that I was meeting him. We met the photographer in the little town of Oia, overlooking the whole Santorini Caldera. When we first started the photoshoot Neel kept trying to have the photographer take single shots of just me so that he could talk to the photographer. I was not having it, and kept saying “But this is a photoshoot for both of us!” After a couple different locations, Neel’s luck finally turned. A group of tourists on the narrow Oia streets had separated me from the photographer and Neel. He quickly told the photographer that he had a ring and wanted to propose. The photographer knew immediately where to go and he motioned to Neel to walk down the steps to meet me where I was waiting. The photographer had us take a couple shots and then he told me to turn around and look out into the ocean.
At this point, I was starting to catch on (I am a very difficult person to surprise). Immediately the photographer told me in the thickest Greek accent “Turn around there is a surprise for you”. I started to turn around slowly and at that moment I was in so much shock I immediately started crying tears of joy when I saw Neel kneeling in front of me. He honestly could not have gotten any more emotion out of me, and we have pictures to prove it. Neel was so overtaken by my emotion that he started to get emotional and could barely speak the words “Will you marry me” before I gave him the biggest hug.
I didn’t even give him a chance to look at or put the ring on before I hugged him. Finally, he put the ring on my finger and our photographer could tell that we were super flustered and excited. So he was nice enough to get us both water and told us to sit down to enjoy the moment to take it all in. It was such a magical moment that I had honestly dreamt of since I was little and was so overjoyed when it happened. After our photoshoot in Oia, we had a private wine tour planned that ended with a sunset by the gorgeous Santorini lighthouse. The perfect ending to a perfect day.
