Today is our four year engagement-iversary! If that isn’t a thing, it should be. Here’s the whole mushy story of how it happened…

The proposal happened on December 21, 2012, but the story began long before that. We started dating in the summer of 2007, right after graduating high school together. After that summer began a long road of long distance love, but that’s a story for another time. In the summer of 2012 we found ourselves in the back of a church, committing our lives to Jesus (for the second time for me)… but, again, that’s a story for another time. This caused us to really consider marriage seriously and we both decided that in order to honour the Lord in our relationship, it was time for us to get married.

Fast forward to September when I was putting away some laundry (my cover story for actually creeping Brendan’s underwear drawer looking for the ring) whennnn, a little purple box caught my eye! Oh.em.geeeeeee. I texted my BFF, Sarah, right away and we proceeded to reenact the scene from Bride Wars (such a classic rom com) when Liv finds the engagement ring. Her all caps text: HE SHOULD SEE YOUR FACE WHEN YOU FIRST SEE THE RING!!!!! was enough for me to put away the box without peeking…for now.

However, every time I was home alone, that temptation kept rising until I finally took a peek. It was the most perfect solitaire that I never knew I wanted until I saw it! I put it away with a beaming smile on my face. Next time I was home alone, I tried it on. Not my proudest moment, guys, but it’s the truth. Soooo, I spent that entire fall waiting for the proposal. Every date, every romantic moment, I wondered if he had that beautiful ring in his pocket. The suspense was literally killing me. I absolutely hate surprises.

In December (such a long wait since I found the ring in September!) we were going to Lake Louise for the weekend. I was 100% sure that this was it. I painted my nails in preparation. I told all my friends that I was going to get engaged on the weekend. We all squealed together and imagined the most romantic proposal at the most picturesque location.

Friday night, we are in the car outside the house, ready to drive to Lake Louise when I say, “I forgot something… I have to run back inside.” Brendan waits in the car (as I had hoped) and I sneak into his undie drawer again, and as I suspected the ring is NOT there. Instant butterflies… and I run back to the car with a huge smile.

We spent a lovely weekend in Lake Louise and there were plenty of moments that would have been perfect. But every time I thought it was going to happen, it didn’t. On Sunday, before our drive home, we went for a snow shoe up to a beautiful spot overlooking Lake Louise. I gazed at the view and turned around to look at Brendan who was shockingly STILL not on one knee! On the hike back down, I was less than thrilled. The drive home was even worse. All of my friends were texting me asking how he did it. With tears in my eyes I had to tell them that he didn’t. It was rough. I decided that he must be waiting until we went home to Nelson for Christmas and I promised to stop killing myself over trying to figure out when it would happen.

The Friday after this was my last day of my final teaching practicum. I also found out that I had been hired by the Calgary Board of Education so Brendan texted me and told me we were going out for a celebratory dinner. He took me to the fanciest restaurant we had ever been to, River Café, on Prince’s Island. At the table there was a vase of red roses and champagne. However, the whole time I refused to let myself think that this could be the night and just focused on enjoying our time together.

After dinner we walked back to the car and Brendan pulled out a duffel bag and said that he had one more surprise. We turned around and walked back to the frozen river in front of the River Café. Brendan pulled out a pair of new skates for me and his own skates, too. We laced up, held hands and skated around. It was super romantic… there were Christmas lights on the bridge, music playing over loudspeakers and it was just us except for one hardcore skater lady that was doing laps around us.

Brendan stopped, pulled out his iPod and played a little slideshow of pictures of us throughout our 5 years of dating. Instantly, I was crying as I knew that this was the moment I had been waiting for! At the end of the slideshow, he was down on one knee in the middle of the frozen river, holding that beautiful ring and asking me to be his wife. It was even better than the Lake Louise proposal I had envisioned. It was also a terrible night to decide not to wear socks, since it was about -25… but everyone knows I hate socks. So, with freezing toes, a huge smile, and a beautiful ring on my finger, we walked back to the car and I could finally tell all my girlfriends that I wasn’t crazy and he did actually propose!

Two years later, we were having dinner with two of our close friends, talking about proposals when my girlfriend said, “Haha, Lauren, remember when you found the ring??” I spun around from what I was doing at the stove and gave her the please-stop-talking look, but it was already too late. I told Brendan the whole story that I was saving for some monumental wedding anniversary (like 50 years, ha) and we laughed and laughed. Good thing he knows me well enough to expect this kind of thing! And we’re still living happily ever after…

Here we are just casually hanging out in a truck on our wedding day…

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