Our Engagement Story

It’s been just about 3 months since TM proposed and it still doesn’t feel real sometimes. I look down at my hand and I still can’t believe there’s an engagement ring on my finger. My heart gets all fluttery and excited when I get to say things like “fiancé” or “our wedding” and have it actually be real and not a dream. That sounds so cliché but it’s real! This post has been a long time coming but I wanted to soak it in for a little while, then the holidays hit and all bets were off. But yall asked for the engagement story and I wanted to make sure I shared it!

TM is really private, he doesn’t have social media and doesn’t really want to be on it. That’s his choice and I fully respect it. He knows I respect his decision and that I live a little on social media and he’s now okay with being on it a little. I’m sure when we have kids (!!!) things could change and they won’t have a presence on social media. I also have strong feelings on that – with what I know from my job about what can be done with pictures of kids online – it’s not happening. Anyway, I digress…

I’ll confess I knew it was coming I just didn’t know when. We had looked at rings (and he took diligent mental notes when I said I liked a cut etc). We had deep discussions about all the topics you need to talk about, or think you need to talk about, before you join your lives together. We had celebrated our one year anniversary in June 2020 and we went to Maine but I didn’t think it was going to happen then. By the end of July 4th weekend I knew he had a ring because he let something slip about it and I like the prosecutor I am couldn’t let it go. I didn’t think it was going to happen until after my birthday at the end of August but once I knew he had a ring it’s like there was always a part of me going is it now?

How He Asked

Back in October 2021 TM had been telling me his truck was making some weird noises while he was driving. He throw it into conversation randomly “my truck was making that noise again today” or “my truck did something weird today.” I kept telling him he needed to go get it checked out but he just brushed it off. Saturday the 16th we had reservations at Red Ash in downtown Austin for dinner at 8:15. The timing here is actually crucial to the engagement story. We had reservations at 8:15 but he told me the reservations were for 7pm. It was going to take about 30ish minutes to get to the restaurant so TM was stressing he was going to pick me up at 6:15 and I needed to be ready at 6:15 on the dot.

TM belaboring this point doesn’t give off any warning bells because I’m never ready on time. Ever. He is always 15 minutes early. The way he was talking about how I wasn’t going to be ready at 6:15 just made me determined to actually be ready on time this one day! Well 6:15 hits and he isn’t at the house and I’M ACTUALLY READY. I texted him to see where he was and he doesn’t respond. He finally calls me like 10 minutes later. He tells me that his truck started making the noise again and then it started shaking so he pulled over in the golf course parking lot. The golf course is just a little past the end of my mom’s house, where I was, so he was close. He tells me he doesn’t think he should drive downtown and I should just come pick him up and we can take my car to dinner. I don’t think twice and I grab my keys and head out.

I drive down to the golf course and I can’t get in the parking lot because at the entrance there are all these high school girls and their moms standing there; I think ‘oh they must be taking homecoming pictures’ and flip a u-turn and go in the other entrance. I park, open my door, stand up and look for him. I see him standing all cool as a cucumber. I wave to him like let’s go! and He just tries to wave me over to where he is. I’m like uh no let’s go! He comes over and says ‘hey come with me.” I was like dude we’re going to be late for dinner but he just closes my door, says come here, grabs my hand, and starts walking with me towards the hill.

Quick Back Story

This golf course parking lot looks directly at the 18th hole green. When we first started dating and everything was fairly locked down due to Covid we actually had a random date sitting in the bed of his truck just looking over the green, watching the sunset, and talking. We talked for hours that night, I never thought this random date would end up as part of our engagement story. One of the random things we discussed was all of the reasons we the other person shouldn’t date us – our flaws. We didn’t want to hide anything from each other so we talked about everything.

Get Back to the Engagement Story!

So I’m following him up this hill that we had looked over on our date and I start to feel like omgomgomgomgomg. This is so unlike TM – he is never ever late and the fact that we’re running seriously late and he wants to go on a little walk is setting off alarm bells. As we’re walking he starts telling me wonderful things – heartfelt things that are going to stay private. But we finally get to the top of the hill and he turns me around and asks if I remember when we were talking that one night in his truck here. He drops to one knee and said that we talked about all the reasons why we should date each other but that he can’t think of any reason why he wouldn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me!

He asked me to marry him and I dropped to my knees just so overcome. He had the ring out but I didn’t even see it I was just looking at him. When he finally asks if he can put the ring on my finger I notice that it’s in a wooden box. Yall, he made the ring box himself – the entire thing is handmade. He made the padding and covered it in my favorite color. It is one of the most special things I have.

When we stand up we hear yelling and cheering. Remember those high school girls and moms? Well they all were standing watching and clapping and screaming ‘congratulations!’ TM tells me later that the reason it took him 10 minutes to call me back was because he was talking to the moms because they were taking pictures at the exact spot he wanted to propose and he was asking them to move! Ha!

Then he tells me that this other random man walking towards up was actually a photographer that was taking pictures! He comes up and introduces himself and we end up taking a few more photos of us there. I finally ask about dinner because I’m thinking that we just missed our reservation and he tells me that we actually still had reservations and his truck wasn’t making any noise so we were going to drop my car off before we went. We get back to the house and immediately call my mom. She was out of the country and was waiting for the call because TM had told her what was happening and when it was happening. I still don’t know how she was able to keep the secret from me. She almost screwed it up when she commented on my nail color earlier in the week. She’s crying, I’m crying, everyone is crying and yelling and excited. We call TM’s parents and we get to tell our engagement story again and the crying and excitement happens again!

We asked our parents not to tell anyone until the next day because we wanted to soak in that evening without our phones blowing up. We got to go to dinner and celebrate just the two of us and it was bliss. That evening was absolutely perfect and I will remember it for the rest of my life.

PS I think my nail color looks AWESOME mom!