We're Engaged!
WE’RE ENGAGED! Oh, man, where do I even start? The past week has been an absolute whirlwind with my new fiancé! I had a hunch for about a month that Matt was going to pop the question; I just didn’t know where or when it was going to happen.
Matt and I have been together for almost four years. We meet the first week of freshman year at Virginia Tech and immediately hit it off. He was SO easy to talk to, and I felt like I had found a little piece of home in my new college town. Matt made me feel so adored and instantly became my best friend. I knew within 6 months of dating that he was my forever.
How He Asked
When Matt and I started talking about getting engaged, there were three things that I had always envisioned being a part of the proposal.
I didn’t want to get engaged before we graduated from college.
I wanted our engagement to be private and just us.
I wanted to get engagement on the beach if possible.
He hit all three of these requests out of the park. We graduated from Virginia Tech in May and Matt ended up proposing in August. Granted, this year was super weird with COVID-19, but it was the perfect timeline to get settled in our new home up in Alexandria, Virginia.
You may remember from Instagram that my family took a trip to Kerr Lake at the beginning of August like we do every summer. However, back in June, Matthew started talking about taking vacation before our careers really took off. I thought it was a little strange to go from vacation to vacation, but I love the beach and definitely didn’t argue!
Friday rolled around, and the plan was to leave the lake house after I clocked out of work, and drive the 4 hours down to Duck, NC. All throughout the drive I was texting one of my close friends almost convinced Matt was going to propose. He was acting sooo strange and I knew something was up! But Friday night came and went, and no proposal!
Saturday morning I woke up at 6 am SO excited because I just knew that was the day I was going to be engaged. It’s so strange that I was that certain about it, but I just knew in my gut it was going to happen. I was so excited that I ended up waking Matt up at 6:30am, and we left around 7:15am to get donuts from Duck Donuts. The plan was to pick up donuts for breakfast and then enjoy them on the beach.
As soon as we got to the beach to enjoy our donuts, Matt’s nervous energy was palpable. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near our beach bag (dead giveaway!!) and it was super obvious that his head was somewhere else entirely.
When Matt suggested taking blog pictures and setting up a tripod to get a picture together, I knew it was the moment. We stood together to take a picture, facing the tripod, and I could feel his heart beating out of his chest. I told myself to live in the moment, because any second we would go from boyfriend and girlfriend to an engaged couple. It truly felt like this was the perfect moment that our past 4 years of dating had brought us to. The moment just felt right. Matt clearly knew it was the moment too, because he pulled me close and perfectly summed up our love story and dedication to one another before getting down on one knee.
The tears, the laugher, the smiles from that moment will forever be engrained in my mind. I am now engaged to my best friend! Matthew was super clever, and when I thought we were taking a picture together, he actually had his camera set up taking a video. We now have the sweetest video to remind us how we got engaged.
We sat out on the beach for an hour after the proposal calling our friends and family to tell them the good news. Huge shoutout to my freshman year roommate, and still to-this-day close friend, Claire. She lives in San Francisco and got a 5 am wakeup call from me to share the good news. I got completely caught up in the moment and didn’t realize how early it was!!! Sorry, Claire!!
You guys, I was like a giddy school girl for the rest of the weekend. I couldn’t believe I was finally able to say I had a fiancé!
The Ring
I adore the ring Matthew selected. I told him I wanted something that was understated, but still elegant and timeless. I want to look down at my hand when I’m 80 while we’re sitting in rocking chairs and still feel like the ring is true to me.
Last summer we sat down and had a serious conversation about getting married and what an engagement would look like. I knew I wanted a cushion cut diamond with a pavé band, but the exact specifics were completely up to Matt. I teased him a little (ok, a lot) over the following months to make sure he remembered what kind of ring I wanted.
What’s Next?
Oh man, that’s the million dollar question. I wish I knew what the world is going to look like in the coming year. My brother and his amazing fiancée, Amanda, are getting married in February 2021, so I know we’ll be so busy with all of their festivities until then! We’re thinking Fall 2021 or Fall 2022, but it’s completely dependent on COVID and when things return to somewhat normalcy.