Friends, today I am sharing the story of how Andrew proposed. I did not think 9 years ago, when I started this blog, that I would one day be typing out the story of how I got engaged, but I am so excited to share with you today a little glimpse into our love story and give you all the magical details of our proposal. 🤍
Andrew & I met on Hinge in April of 2019. After months of online dates, I had gone on what I claimed was my “last dating app date” & on the way home from that horrible last date, Andrew and I matched. He was too cute to pass up, so I messaged him. After chatting for a bit that night, he asked me to have a FaceTime date (which no dating app guy had ever done before). We planned on a FaceTime date the next day after work. That morning before work I had dropped my dog, Mia, a nervous rescue pittie off at a trainer for evaluation. I was supposed to pick her up after work that day and meet with the trainers to discuss our options for a training plan. Shortly after dropping her off, I received a phone call from the trainer that Mia had some serious anxiety and that it’d be best for her to start the month-long in-kennel training that day. I knew this would probably be the outcome of the evaluation but was not expecting to have to be apart from her for so long and starting so suddenly. Needless to say, there were many tears as I dropped off her blanket and a bag of food for her on my lunch break that day.
Since I spent a good portion of the day crying over my pup when it came time for Andrew and I to have our FaceTime date I warned him that I probably looked a mess and explained what happened. He was so sweet and understanding and we had so much fun chatting on FaceTime. He completely took my mind off of missing Mia. After our FaceTime date he asked me out and I decided to go on one last online date to see what he was like in person. We had so much fun on our date we just kept adding activities to the date. What started as a quick bite to eat at Cava turned into a walk, a few games of corn hole, a movie, and talking for hours. We have basically been inseparable ever since.
We bought a house together in June 2020 amidst the pandemic and Andrew “adopted” my crazy nervous pittie, who loves him beyond words, even after the trainers said she would never have a man in her life that she trusts.
After we bought a house the topic of marriage started to come up more and more. Every time we talked about it though Andrew mentioned the new house costs and wanting to wait to be able to buy me my dream ring.
Needless to say, Andrew had me convinced that a proposal was not coming in 2020 and that it would be mid to late 2021 before we were engaged.
So when he planned a trip to the Biltmore for my birthday weekend, I didn’t think much of it. A part of me wondered, but the logical side of me knew it wasn’t happening. I didn’t even suspect anything the day of when he insisted that we dress up to walk the gardens of the estate. He claimed he wanted to be dressed up because it was his first time at the Biltmore and he wanted “good pictures”.
We spent the early afternoon exploring the gardens of the Biltmore. We took silly videos, giggled our way through the greenhouse, and stopped for several photo opps. But after 3 hours of walking in shoes that were giving me horrible blisters, my silly, excited frolic through the gardens turned to limping through the gardens and I was ready to get a photo at the top of the stairs in front of the house and then head back to the hotel to change. I hobbled up the stairs, telling Andrew over and over how ready I was to take these dang shoes off and be in comfy clothes (LOL). When we got to the top, we found a couple who was down for a photo-taking exchange; we took theirs and they took ours. Once we had our photo taken and thanked the sweet couple I was ready to go and started to walk towards our things, but Andrew nudged me toward the center of the railing. I thought maybe he just wanted to stand there a little longer and enjoy the view. He turned me gently to face him and started explaining how he’d been LYING to me for months and hoped that I wouldn’t be mad at him. I stared at him puzzled for a moment, not sure of where he was going with this and watched him cautiously as he reached into his jacket and took out a small wooden box. After a beautiful speech about our love, he knelt down and asked me to marry him. I don’t really remember being able to form words, I started crying almost immediately after my brain deciphered what was going on. Luckily, he had hired a photographer to capture the whole thing, so I can never forget that fell to my knees crying and handed Andrew the wrong hand while I squeaked out the word “yes” in-between tears. I could not believe he was able to keep this huge secret from me for so long and pull of this amazing surprise.
After the proposal, we had an hour-long photoshoot with the photographer. It felt like we were just floating around the grounds of the Biltmore taking photos. It was a dream. Afterward, we had dinner at the Grove Park Inn at Vue 1913. We had an amazing dinner there and spent it giggling together as we reminisced on the past several months and all it took to make that day happen. Andrew confessed to having shown me my own ring on Instagram when the jeweler posted photos of it and asked me if I liked it. To which I replied, “Stop teasing me. You know that’s my dream ring”.
I had told him before when we first started talking about getting married that I would love to have a photographer there to capture the moment. I also had mentioned in passing before how I loved when the couple got to share the moment together and then got to meet their family and friends for dinner later on. I had no idea that Andrew had been paying such close attention to everything I had said.
On top of asking me during my absolute favorite season, fall, and in one of our favorite places, the mountains, he had hired a photographer to capture the whole thing and to take an engagement photo session afterward. We had so much fun floating around the grounds of the Biltmore taking photos. It felt like a dream. Afterward, Andrew told me that he had my ring made and that when the jeweler posted my ring on Instagram, he actually showed me my ring on Insta and asked me if I liked it. To which I replied, “Stop teasing me. You know that’s my dream ring”. He put so much thought into every little detail. Even down to getting a custom slim engraved ring box.
Besides calling our families and closest friends, we didn’t tell anyone that we were engaged until we got the sneak peeks from the photographer late Sunday night, so we had all Saturday night and Sunday to explore Asheville more and enjoy being newly engaged.
When we got back to Charlotte Sunday afternoon, we met my family for dinner at one of my favorite taco spots, RuRu’s. They have such fun and unique tacos on the menu and the most picturesque and quaint patio nestled between vine-covered stucco walls complete with string lights and a fountain. It meant the absolute world to me to get to celebrate such a fun and exciting time with my family.
We consider ourselves blessed beyond words to have found the person that we want to spend forever with.
Andrew planned and thought out every little detail of the day. He made it so special, so incredibly memorable, and so us. I can’t wait to marry this man.
I want to give a huge shoutout to Andrew May, the photographer who owns Allegory & Elm, who captured this magical day for us! He does fabulous work, and I am so excited him, and Andrew worked hard to capture these images.
Always,
