Wedding Wednesday: Our Proposal Story!
Happy Wedding Wednesday! I'm so excited to get started with these, because they've always been some of my favorite types of posts to read! You guys voted that you'd like to see them every other week, so hopefully you'll love them too! This first Wedding Wednesday post is all about the proposal! Grab a glass of wine and find a comfy spot, because this post will definitely be a longer one!
First off, Jerry and I have been together for 5 and a half years now (you can read the story of how we met here!) so this has been a long time coming! One of the main questions I've been getting asked has been "Did you know it was going to happen?". The answer is yes. I definitely knew it was coming soon, and I knew he had ordered the ring, but I didn't know when! When he ordered the ring back in June, he let it slip that he had been emailing with Heidi Gibson, whose Instagram I've been stalking for years now because all of her rings are AMAZING! Months ago, he had had me send him an email (lol so romantic) with the details of the ring that I had been obsessing over along with my ring size, so I also had a pretty good idea of what the ring was going to be, or at least what I hoped it would be! I did leave off the metal color though, so the rose gold was all him and it's actually not what I would have chosen, but I am so glad he did because I actually like it better than I think I would have liked it in white gold! Now that we've gotten the ring details out of the way, let's talk proposal!
Even though I knew it was coming, I had no idea when or how. On Heidi's website she says the ring usually takes 8-10 weeks for her to make, so I wasn't even expecting it to be ready until the end of August if not even early September. I secretly had my fingers crossed that she'd finish early, but I didn't know that she actually had.
A little bit of a back-story, I used to work at Arrington Vineyards, (which is actually what gave me the idea for The Nashelorette, because of the crazy amounts of bachelorette parties that I would see on the weekends!) and had mentioned once or twice that Arrington would be an amazing place for a proposal! He apparently listened, because that's where he was originally planning to propose.
He had my friend text me the Friday before last, saying "Hey! Tomorrow is supposed to be super nice, do you want to go to Arrington and have a picnic? I still haven't been and I've been wanting to go forever!", to which I actually responded "ABSOLUTELY NOT!", which is definitely not the answer that they were expecting. Lol. Whoops. Normally, I would have loved to, but their timing was terrible, because that Saturday happened to be the day of Arrington's annual Harvest Party, which happens to be the single busiest day of their entire year. I worked it when I worked there, and while it's a fun event, it is so crowded that you honestly could not pay me to go! So then she suggested a double date picnic at Percy Priest lake so that we could "dress up and take cute pictures". Percy Priest is where we take Euler every week to swim, so it was perfect, we could kill two birds with one stone.
So here's the thing. Even though I didn't know if the ring would be ready, I knew that it wasn't completely out of the question. This particular friend doesn't usually care about taking pictures, and Jerry is usually not the biggest fan of double dates, so when she suggested taking cute pictures and he readily agreed to a double date, I had my suspicions. But I was trying really hard not to get my hopes up. That being said, I definitely had the possibility in mind when I chose my outfit!
We got to the lake, started grilling burgers and hot dogs and I kind of start thinking that it was probably not going to happen and that I had gotten all excited over nothing. But then, my friend suggests that we go take pictures before we eat just in case we spill on ourselves, which was probably smart knowing me. And so we go find a spot in the shade with a pretty backdrop. She suggests that Jerry and I go first, so I get my camera set up with the lighting and pass it off to her. We start taking the pictures, and after a couple of test shots, Jerry pulls the ring out of his pocket and gets down on one knee! It was the perfect, simple proposal and I love that it happened in a spot that means something to us!
After the proposal, we go eat, pop some champagne, celebrate, take more pictures and then start packing up to leave. Euler, who is way too smart for his own good realizes what's happening and is like "No... We aren't leaving until I get to go swimming!". He was off leash at the time since we had just been playing fetch with him, so he takes off running straight for the lake and then jumps right into the water. It was honestly one of my favorite parts of the whole day (aside from the obvious) because it was just SO funny! So we ended up playing fetch with him in the water for a little while longer, and then packed up and went home!
So that's how it happened! We're currently planning for a longer engagement and a fall wedding, and I absolutely cannot wait to start planning!
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading this absolute novel of a post!
XOXO,
Olivia