On my birthday 3 years ago...
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One of my favorite parts about meeting with my brides is hearing their engagement stories. I'm not really an emotional person, but I always find myself wanting to tear up. Hearing about proposals reminds me of the blissful night we got engaged. Recently, my sweet bride Jenessa asked me about our story and I realized I've never written in out before. I thought it be fitting to share it now.
Three years ago today, Jonathan proposed and I said yes. This is the story.
We had been dating for about a year and a half in fall of 2009. We knew from the get go that we were in this for the long haul and had talked about marriage a little bit. We discussed getting married within a year, but I didn't think he'd propose until after my college graduation in December. Little did I know that Jonathan already had the ring. In fact I almost found out about it a few times. Once he forgot about the papers for the ring in the passengers seat of his truck when he picked me up, but I never looked at them! Another time I asked if I could get some gum out of the center console, which happened to be where he had the ring. He quickly got it for me before I reached inside and discovered the box!
Finally, the day came that he planned to propose. It was my 21st birthday. I had a long day of class and was ready to spend the evening with my boyfriend. He hadn't called me all day, which made me assume he had some special plans for the evening. I didn't think much of it though, because he always had some sort of surprise on special occasions. I walked into the church where he was leading worship that Wednesday night. Everything went like usual, and I was still completely clueless.
After the service he took me to a nice Japanise Steak House, which is where we had our first official date. The whole meal we were laughing to ourselves at the couple next too us. They didn't mean to be funny, but the many glasses of saki made them say such ridiculous things! On our way out I remembered that we hadn't been there since our first date. He said, "I've been waiting for you to remember that, because we're going to play a little game about all the "firsts" in our relationship." My heart started fluttering then. He always knew just how to make me swoon. He'd drive somwehere and ask, "Do you remember what happened here?" and then we'd reminisce. We drove to where we where we talked about dating, watched our first movie together, held hands and many other things. I have to admit that he remembered more things than I did! I had fun guessing where we were going next. After a while he drove up back up to his church. It was there that we hung out for the first time and had our first serious conversation. We played the piano like we did during that first conversation and talked about how much had changed since that night. After a while I figured we were done and started to walk out, but he stopped me saying that we had another 1st there. I started racking my mind, worried that I'd forgotten one like I had earlier that night. He moved me onto the center of the stage said, "I'll give you a clue. It was a night kind of like tonight, and you were standing right here." I still couldn't think of anything, so he had me close my eyes.
Then it hit me. He was about to propose!
My head started spinning and everything became a blur. When I turned around he was on one knee. Holding out a beautiful ring he said, "You couldn't remember the first because it hasn't happened yet, and now I want to ask you this for the first time. Will you marry me?" I was so overcome with emotion that I could hardly say anything for a moment. I kind of forgot about the ring and just hugged him. After a while he said "I guess I'll take that as a yes?" Well, of course, I did say yes! It was such a happy night that we'll remember forever! Seven months later we said "I do" in the exact same spot.
Happy 3rd birthday to the gorgeous ring! It is content reminder of my husband's love and the covenant we made to each other. I will always cherish it.
