Our Engagement Story

Hellooooo.

It’s time to share THEE official engagement story. If you’re following along on IG stories, you probably have already heard the details. But I wanted to give this blog post a place to live forever so that I can look back on it as a memory if nothing else.

Let’s cut to the chase.

So flash back to a few days before the engagement (which happened on a Saturday 3/14/2020). Josh and I had a week long trip to Punta Cana planned and we were supposed to leave on Sunday. Mind you, this is back in early March when COVID-19 was just starting to brew in the U.S.

In retrospect, I was definitely in complete denial about potentially not being able to go on our trip. Up until the day (maybe more like hour) before we cancelled, I was dead set on going no matter what. We hadn’t been on a vacation just the two of us in quite some time so we were very much looking forward to having some QT. And obviously after dating for 4 years, I was wishful thinking for a proposal.

…So *naturally* my expectations were HIGH. And as much as I tried to cancel out the thoughts so I wasn’t let down… let’s be real… I had the whole thing planned out in my head.

Long story short — we cancelled the trip on Friday afternoon. Which then lead to tears, red wine, and too much pizza. Dramatic, I know.

I remember curling up next to Josh (as he looked at me like I was losing my mind) and he basically asked what the heck was going on with me. I remember just saying “I thought something was going to happen”. I never wanted to be the type of girl to push an engagement so this was out of character for me to even say but hey – weak moment, right? He didn’t respond at all, hugged me, and that was that. Josh told me after the fact that he thought about proposing at that moment because he felt so bad but waited. Which… THANK GOD.

So Saturday morning comes. Josh had been up since 5am waiting for me to get out of bed. I typically get up around 7 but for some reason slept until almost 9:30 that day. Poor Josh – haha. I roll downstairs, plop down on the couch, we talked for a little, then he told me to go get my coffee. When I went into the kitchen, he had my k-cup and mug ready to go. Josh gets my coffee ready for me often on the weekends so this wasn’t really out of the ordinary. But next to my coffee was a scrap book.

At this point, it’s honestly still not processing in my head that he could be proposing. I really must have had myself convinced that he was going to do it on our trip because I was really just thinking “oh okay, this is probably part of how he was going to do while we were away but now he’s just giving it to me to cheer me up while he thinks of plan B”. So I sit down – hair a mess, haven’t brushed my teeth, in my sweats & robe – and I start paging through it.

I’ll share some pictures of the pages – which included old notes and cards and ticket stubs that he had saved and of course, photos of us together.

The last couple pages had pictures from all of the weddings we had been to together over the last couple of years. If you guys are close to us, you know we had been to A LOT of them as of recently. And the last page in the scrap book (above) said “IT’S OUR TURN NOW”. And then he did his little thing on his knee and the rest was history.

What makes it even better is that it turned out that this was Josh’s plan for the proposal all along. He wanted to do it the day before we left for our trip so that there was no worry about traveling with the ring or when the perfect time would be to do it once we were there. And honestly, the proposal was PERFECT for us. We are homebodies and spend so much time together in the exact spot that he proposed so it just made so much sense. I would have diedddd with a public proposal so I’m so glad it was private and intimate.

Before I end this, can we take a moment to acknowledge Josh’s scrapbook skills!? I mean, what a gem. I feel so lucky and can’t wait to share more of our wedding planning journey!