I'm engaged!!!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am engaged. Andrew and I have been dating for about 16 months now. We knew about 15 months ago that we wanted to be married to each other. However, about 14 months ago, my sister got engaged to her now-husband and any plans to get married got shoved aside as my parents planned for my sister's wedding (1 terribly long year later).

So Andrew finally got my parents to agree to meet with him so that he could tell them of his plans to propose and ask for their approval (that was a whole other sneaky story).He very carefully planned this so that I had no clue until the last few moments what was going on. Just about everyone we know was in on it or knew that it was going to happen, except me!

He secretly called my boss, Chad, and asked him to make plans with me that Monday night. Chad claimed that he and his wife wanted to take me out to a nice restaurant to repay me for keeping their cats while they were on a mission trip. I was surprised and thought it was strange, but I asked if Andrew could come because I knew that he was coming into town that evening to help clean my apartment. Chad said that was great and that we could make it a "double date."

Well, then a whole lot of chaos ensued and I wasn't ready to go at the appointed time (8:00 p.m.) and I frantically called Chad to apologize and offer to take a raincheck. He said it was ok and that they were just chilling out and not to rush. Andrew kept trying to calm me down over the phone, telling me that Chad was ok and that he had worked things out. Well, we finally got out the door at 9:00 p.m. and when Andrew took a wrong turn, I nearly had a heart-attack. I said, "Chad lives the opposite direction!" That's when he told me that the whole thing was a ruse and that he was just trying to surprise me with a nice dinner to celebrate my new apartment. I accepted this answer because I had done similar things when I wanted to surprise Andrew before and it didn’t seem too fishy yet.

So, he took me to the O’Charley’s that we went to on our first date. I was still unsuspicious because he had taken me there two other times just for fun. We ate dinner, he paid, and we left. I had to go walk the dog at a friend’s home that I was house/dog-sitting for, so he was really sweet and we walked the dog together.

After the walk, it was about 11:00 and he said we needed to get going at 11:20 because we had an “appointment.” I thought that was really strange, but I still wasn’t expecting anything big. He took me to Samford University, and we stopped at the guard gate where he asked if one of two officers was on duty. He said, “Tell him Andrew is here.” And then I got really nervous and suspicious because it was the first time I started to suspect that he was going to pop the question.

The safety officer let us into the art building and down into the ceramics room, where Andrew and I had spent a lot of hours in that room talking and hanging out while I threw pots or crafted small bowls out of clay. Andrew handed me a sweet card and asked me to read it out loud. When I was finished, he said, “I chose this spot to do this because it is one of my favorite places on earth. This is where you first told me that you loved me and it changed my life forever. I chose this time because July 31st is when your dad made your mom his wife and August 1st is when my dad made my mom his wife and now, at midnight between the two days, I want to ask you to be my wife.” He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and showed me the most perfect ring he could have gotten. I was stunned and it took me a few seconds, but of course I said yes. It was the most beautiful and creative thing he could have ever done.