Wedding Week: The Proposal

Tuesday, March 4th 2014.

Today was a day like any other, or so it began anyway. I woke up and got ready for work, a little more motivated today than most days because Kelly & I are leaving for a mini-vacation in Texas two days from now- woohoo! Buh-bye Michigan and your three feet of snow and frigid temperatures! Sayonara! 

While talking with him on the phone this morning, he asked what I was doing after work, which is a little annoying because I told him yesterday that I'm going up to the barn. Can this guy not remember anything?!

After work, I'm lucky to make it to the barn safely as I've spent most of the drive daydreaming about warm weather, drinks on the Riverwalk and county fairs. There are two lessons tonight, everyone is excited to ride and there's a great atmosphere in the arena, despite the 17 degree weather. After the last lesson is finished, the instructor asks me to walk Louie around the arena while she meets a potential student who is waiting in the office.

When I reach the end of the arena, I hear, "Hey!" in a man's voice. It's a little odd because there aren't any men at the barn tonight and when I turn around, I see Kelly. He had told me previously that he wanted to come to the barn one night to see what it was all about, so I'm thinking he must have been watching from the observation room.

Louie and I are stopped and waiting for him as he's jogging across the arena towards us. He slows to a walk once he reaches us and as he gets closer, he looks at me and says "The reason that you're still here is because of me..." and for a minute, I'm completely confused and have no idea what he's talking about. Then, as he reaches into his pocket, he gets this sweet, sweet look on his face and my heart drops all the way to my toes then slams up into my throat. 

I know whats happening!

He proceeds to say a bunch of lovely things that I can't even remember other than they made my heart melt. My eyes are watering, my legs start shaking uncontrollably, and I'm pretty sure I'm nodding my head 'Yes' before he even asks the question. 

Good thing for sweet horses! Louie just stood there looking at Kelly curiously, probably wondering why this guy ran over to kneel on the ground.

 

Unbeknown to me, Kelly had coordinated this all with one of the instructors and she was sweet enough to capture a couple pictures with her phone. As if I would forget any of this night :)

Since we had driven separately, we decided to meet at the truck stop so I was able to park my car and jump in with him, then we went to dinner. Since we were both in our ratty barn clothes, we didn't go anywhere fancy. We went to a a little diner and as we were sitting there, I looked around the diner and noticed that 90% of the people were elderly couples. They were drinking their coffee and sharing dessert after dinner. It made my heart about burst because I thought, someday, that will be us. Drinking our coffee and tea, sharing dessert after a long life of loving each other.  

It was a little surreal to be living in our own little world where no one knew what had happened. We didn't call anyone right away and I found out that only a couple people knew this was going to be happening. He had asked for my parent's blessing previously, then stopped to tell his grandma on his way to the barn.

We got home that night and decided that we couldn't live in our own secret world much longer, so we got back in the car and headed to his mom's house. On the way we called everyone- my parents (who were out of the country), my grandparents, siblings and friends.

It was such a wonderful night, I still get butterflies when I think about it.

He told me that he debated waiting to propose on vacation, but knew that the barn was very special to me so he chose to do it there. It is a perfect memory for me. Him in his dirty work clothes and torn Carhartt jacket, me in my muck boots with a horse by my side.