February 12, 2021

A Dandie Proposal: The Story of my Engagement

Hello my loyal readers! I hope this blog post finds you well and celebrating the season of love.

I have mentioned it in my prior posts this year so far, but I am finally going to to tell you the story of how Daniel proposed to me.

It has been three whole months since the proposal, and three years since he asked me to be his girlfriend. Sometimes I pinch myself because I really can not believe this is my actual life, and I have the most amazing man and person to share it with.

Growing up I always dreamed about love and finding my prince charming. I am a Disney princess and romantic at heart after all. The fact I have found my person is the biggest childhood dream come true for me.

I would have posted our proposal story sooner for all of you to read, but I wanted to wait until our anniversary and Valentine’s day to roll around. I also just wanted to savor the time with him the first few months of being engaged, the holidays, and just being in this moment of life.

Now the question I am sure many of you are asking right now was if I was surprised?

The answer is….YES!

He surprised me so insanely good that all I could say was “what are you doing here?!?!” After a minute of me saying, more like squealing this in the woods, he said “I think you know why I am here.”

Me and my handsome fiancé!

The Planning Process:

Mine and Daniels proposal story really starts when we went and tried on engagement rings together in February of 2020.
He wanted my input since it was a big purchase, and I did not really own or wear any rings prior to our engagement, so he was not sure what type of ring I would like.
Plus, I had jammed my ring finger in December 2019 trying to discipline one of our cats. My finger was still swollen two months later, so we wanted to get it sized.
We ended up picking out a setting and the diamond together, and after that day in February it was all on him.

After we had picked out our ring it was hard to not think about him proposing. I was excited and giddy about it, but also wanted to keep it a secret. I only told a select few people because the more I talked about it the more I wanted it to happen sooner. I did not want to rush time, or to be in such a daze I would forget to keep building our relationship. However, the questions of when and where flooded my mind most of 2020.

Up close look of the engagement ring we picked out together. Was a little big since my finger went back down to its normal size.

It was early summer when we talked about more specifics in regards to a proposal, and what my likes and dislikes were.
Fun fact, we actually witnessed a proposal on a trip to Greenville, SC to celebrate our one year anniversary. The soon to be groom proposed in this very public park, and he had twenty of their closest family and friends watching from the bridge above. Afterwards the couple was swarmed by their people, and they had a photographer even to capture all the photos.

Daniel and I naturally talked about this proposal in our discussion last summer, and I was able to tell him what I liked and what I did not like about it.
I loved the fact it was outside and in nature, but I did not like the fact they had so many family and friends present, and how many spectators there were. It was a beautiful proposal, but was not really the kind of proposal I would want.

I had always imagined my proposal to be outside and in an intimate setting. Either it would be me with my prince charming, or with one or two close friends.

“In my mind the proposal has always been seen as more special and significant than the actual wedding. It is a smaller scale event, but also the moment where everything in life changes in the biggest way possible.“

We live in Western North Carolina, so finding a beautiful place outside would not be hard at all, but figuring out the logistics of everything and location, that is a different challenge entirely.

Enter my two close girlfriends!

Me and my two best girlfriends, Megan (middle) and Creeden (right).

My two closest girlfriends and I were planning a fall hike together. We try to have a girls day every season throughout the year, and we usually include a hike on those days.
It was Daniels idea to propose to me on a hike I go on with them. For us to be hiking and poof there he is at the end. He started messaging one of them at the end of September to discuss trails and a date, which would be seven weeks later from their initial conversation.

My friend went above and beyond to figure out the best trail we could go on, and developed a rating system and everything for each trail based on length, location, cell phone signal, features like waterfalls or mountain views, and crowds.

A beautiful waterfall and backdrop for our proposal.

Week Of:

The week of the proposal my mindset is kind of hilarious to me looking back, and too important not to share as part of this story. At this point in the year I really felt like the proposal would not happen that calendar year, even though Daniel had assured me all year long that it would.
We were only seven weeks away from 2021 at this point.

I knew Daniel wanted to talk with my parents to get their blessing prior to proposing, and I just did not feel like he would have the time to get it done with the rest of the calendar year and everyones schedules. I had originally thought in my brain that he would propose in October, and since it was November I was getting antsy for it to happen.

I spent a good amount of time talking with my best friend one night that week, who picked out the trail for our proposal, about just how upset I would be if it did not happen this year.
I even went home that night and ended up asking Daniel about if he still thought it would happen that year, because I was stressed for him with finding the time to talk with my parents and everything prior like he wanted.

Little did I know at the time that he had already talked with my parents a solid month prior to that night, drove out to our proposal sight to know where he was going earlier that day, and the best day of our lives was just two days away.

Day Of:

That morning I woke up early since I was meeting the girls at 8:30am, and had around a forty minute drive to get to the park and ride place.
I arrived at 8:20, and got a text from both of them that they were running behind.
We ended up leaving at around 9:00 that morning from our meet up spot. The reason they both were running late that morning was because they were giving Daniel plenty of time to get to the trail before us.

We get to trail and there were no cars parked at the trailhead, because Daniel had a friend drive him there.
It was a 0.3 mile hike, which is super short from our usual hiking days, but we were going to pair it with other trails if we were feeling up for it afterwards.
My friends wanted to pack snacks in a bag, which I did not think much of because they always have appetites when we are hiking.

We get to the end of the trail to see this waterfall and walk down this little hill to get a better view. I was the last one of us to walk down the hill and said “the best part of this place is that nobody is here.”
Then I see a human creeper out of the corner of my eye and thinking how embarrassed I was to have said that so loudly. When I got a real look of the human and saw it was Daniel, I just stood shocked and started yelling “what are you doing here” over and over.

When he walked on over to me I just kept hugging him. I was in such a state of shock it had overwhelmed my senses to a degree.

He gave his speech, got down on one knee, asked me to marry him, and I said YES!

My girlfriends captured everything on camera, and had packed us some champagne and a tiara for me to wear in some photos as their “snacks.”
We ended up not going on more trails that day and went and grabbed lunch from a local lodge instead.

We got back to our house and started texting and calling our family members. Everybody in my family and his family knew about the proposal going into the day.

The only person who did not know was me.

Celebrated the engagement with a little bit of pink bubbly!

Daniel, with the assistance of our close friends, planned the most perfect proposal and day. I told him there was not one thing I thought he could do differently or better. It was absolutely everything I ever wanted.

I ended up not being able to go to sleep until 3:00am that night because I was on such a happy high from the events of the day. I ended up writing everything out in my personal journal to reflect and read on in the years to come.