I'm Engaged?!

Not clickbait! It's funny because I have a post from 2020 discussing being alone and my feelings about that and here I am, 3 years later, engaged. Who would have thought?? Because I definitely didn't. God is SO good.

I'm posting this in October, but this actually happened on June 30th and as y'all know, I've been horrible at posting on my blog. I'm mostly sharing our story because I have awful memory (My fiancé thought I was being dramatic when I first told him this), and if I ever lose my memory, I want to be able to read our story. And I love reading proposal stories so maybe you might want to read ours?

The Ring.

I knew even before we started dating that I wanted to pick out my ring. I am the one who has to stare at it on my finger for the rest of my life, so I wanted to make sure that I loved it! Pinterest is great for inspiration, but going to an actual jeweler and trying on rings is better which is exactly what we did and I'm glad because what I saw on Pinterest was not practical for me. Going to spare you guys the trouble we went through, but we found the perfect ring and my sweet patient fiancé got it custom-made for me and he was holding on to it since MARCH. So I knew the proposal was going to happen in 2023 lol.

Leading up.

I started getting my nails done regularly starting in April just to be prepared. If I could go back in time, I probably would have just bought press-ons and saved a bunch of money, but it's fine. We don't really do a lot of fancy date nights and if we plan something, it's usually my idea, so I had a feeling I would probably figure out when it was going to happen. And I was right, lol.

On Friday, June 23rd, Thomas told me that he had a company outing on June 30th. Didn't know the details yet, but he said he would let me know the following week. He said it was odd they were doing it right before 4th of July weekend. I also thought that was strange, but didn't think too much of it at the time. On Saturday, June 24th, he told me he was going to Montgomery, AL to go look at new cars. I asked if I could come along and he said no and that he might ask one of his cousins to go with him. I was hurt that he didn't want me to come, but it was fine and I told him to stop by my parents' house in Auburn because he would have to drive by their exit. Turns out, he planned that whole trip just to tell my parents that he was proposing. Smart man, made it look like it was my idea for him to visit my parents 😂 And also explained why he didn't want me to come with him to Montgomery!

Then finally the week of, he told me that the company outing was going to be at 9 Mile Station on top of Ponce City Market and I was like, cool.

My coworkers and I were talking about our July 4th weekend plans in the office. One of my coworkers was planning on proposing to his girlfriend that weekend. I was telling him and my other coworkers about the company outing, how Thomas' family was supposed to come into town that Saturday, and some other friends were also visiting, and while I was saying this all out loud, I started wondering... "Is Thomas proposing?" My coworkers also thought the whole event was suspicious and they were more convinced that I was getting engaged than I was!

But I tried to act normal and keep my expectations low just in case it didn't happen. My mom almost spoiled it on Thursday (literally the day before), but Thomas and everyone else acted totally normal so I thought maybe I was wrong. I did end up getting my nails done just in case (hated the color, but oh well) and Thomas bought me a new dress for the "company outing" since I gave up shopping for clothes in 2023 (that could be a separate blog post) so that we could be color coordinated at the event because I'm lame and I like us to match at events.

The Proposal.

On Friday, June 30th after I was done with work, I got ready. I was supposed to be at Thomas' place by 7pm so we could head out at 7:30 because his company outing was starting around 8pm. (Also suspicious because what company event starts at 8pm on the Friday before a holiday weekend?? lol.) I got to his place right at 7pm and Thomas was taking a nap and wasn't even ready!! So I thought, maybe this isn't happening after all. I waited patiently and we finally headed out together to Ponce City Market. We walked up the stairs of the parking garage and we walk towards the front of PCM when Thomas starts holding my hand, I thought he was just being sweet but then I look ahead and I see a photographer. Then I look at him and legitimately ask, "Wait, are you proposing right now?" and he says "Yeah" 😂 I see his nieces and nephews holding a letters that spell out "Marry me" and he gets down on one knee, and yeah you know what happened next, lol. I was crying and everyone starts cheering and then he points to a group of people and I see all our family and friends watching from afar and they all start walking over. That ended up being a total surprise (because earlier on, I told him since my family and friends are all far away we didn't have to invite them and have a party or anything). We then took a bunch of pictures and go to Rumi's Kitchen for a late dinner. It all ended up being so meaningful because we go to Ponce City Market frequently and go on walks by it all the time. Rumi's Kitchen is one of our favorite restaurants to go to together.

It was such a wonderful day and we're so blessed to have such amazing friends and family to support us.

I like seeing the planning process and how people end doing things for their wedding, but no one really talks about it other than on TikTok. So I might come on here and share our wedding planning process once we have concrete plans. So stay tuned for that! But for now, here are some photos from our engagement.

Photography by Mikey Jacob