E. G. Bella

Hello and happy Friday!

In my life update post last Wednesday, I mentioned that I’d be sharing my fiancé and my proposal story in a separate post, and here it is!

I’ve debated sharing this, as I know some people aren’t interested in this sort of story. It’s never as exciting if you’re not the one living it, right? But I still enjoy hearing others’ proposal stories, so if there’s anyone who feels the same way, here you go! I’ll have fun reliving it anyway, haha.

So without further ado . . .

My fiancé proposed October 23rd, 2022 – on what started off as a completely normal Sunday. Or so I thought.

Usually on Sundays, I drive into town from where I live with my family in the country, meet up with my fiancé, and then we’ll head to church in the same vehicle. This morning though, he texted that he’d just come pick me up.

I thought that was slightly strange, but ultimately figured it had something to do with the headache I’d had the past few days. I felt great that morning, but the past few days had been rough, and I guessed he was trying not to make me drive.

So he picks me up, we head into town, and as we’re driving to church, he mentions that it’s so beautiful out, it’d be nice to take a walk on one of our favorite trails later. The weather was sunny and warm, a really nice change from what it had been lately, and we hadn’t been able to take a long walk together in a while.

I immediately agreed – I’d been hoping to walk as well – and then we realized that I forgot to bring a change of shoes. Right then, I was wearing boots with a wedge heel for church, and while I usually kept a pair of walking shoes in my vehicle, I’d forgotten to grab them when he picked me up.

Bummed but still wanting to walk, I asked if we could go somewhere with sidewalks, rather than gravel paths and hills like we’d planned. He paused for just a few seconds, then nodded and said, “yeah, that’s fine, we can find somewhere.”

I didn’t think about it again after that.

We went to church, finished the service, and all seemed normal. After we were back in his vehicle and discussing where to walk, he suggested a local path that started in a park and wove around our town, behind various businesses and other parks. It was one we’d walked many times before, and it was paved, so that’s what we decided.

En route, I half-jokingly suggested we could walk around a certain area of our town where he’d been wanting to show me a run-down building he’d visited as part of his work. Not surprisingly, he didn’t really respond to that, other than a chuckle. Guess that was a no.

So we get to our path and start walking, and I was so glad to get to walk with him again.

When we first started dating, we’d walk for hours, just talking about anything and everything, and I’d missed that. That morning in particular, I was mentally pretty down about some things, mainly that – due to certain situations – I thought we’d still be waiting about another year to get married, even though we already knew we wanted to.

And as it turned out, that morning a random proposal video popped up on my social media feed. The couple’s reactions reminded me so much of what I thought my fiancé and I might be like, that I almost sent it to him. I didn’t, because I thought that might either be weird, or make things harder, but I ended up telling him about it anyway as we walked.

Poor guy. He was a little bit quieter than usual, but otherwise seemed pretty normal in his reactions, and what we talked about. He told me later that he was thinking the whole time how he wished he could tell me to just wait five minutes, and then we’d see what my reaction would be like.

Almost right after, we rounded a corner, heading toward a bridge, and I laughingly pointed out a sign I saw on a light post with my first name on it. I thought he’d find it amusing, but he barely even reacted and seemed very preoccupied. That’s when I could tell something was up, and I felt bad because I figured he was stressed about life.

We start walking onto the bridge, and I’m in the middle of mentioning how the bridge looks so beautiful with the leaves falling down in the sunlight (my attempt to cheer him up), when he stops walking.

I was really concerned because he looked very stressed about something, so I gave him a hug and asked if he was okay, and if he wanted to talk about it. He just responded with a shaky laugh.

After what felt like forever but was probably a fairly short time of him taking deep breaths and me racking my brain trying to figure out what was wrong, he started saying some very sweet things, made a reference to us spending the rest of our lives together, and I finally realized what was up a split second before he got down on one knee.

Yes, I reacted about like I thought I would (I’ve never shaken so hard in my life), but I told him “YES” at least four times, gave him a big hug, and then he slid the ring on my pinky finger as it wasn’t my size yet – but I didn’t care one bit. Someone biked past on the trail right afterward, and I still wonder if they could tell what was up by our grins.

We sat for a while and he enjoyed telling me the entire story of how he’d collaborated with my parents to come to our home and ask their blessing while I was at work one evening. No one else knew, which is kind of miraculous considering all my siblings. But somehow they managed to keep it a secret from everyone for three days.

And remember my fiancé’s slight hesitation after I asked if we could walk somewhere with paved paths? That’s because apparently he’d been up early, buying two different color balloons, and decorating our typical hiking path at about 6:00 _^AM that morning.

He was super creative and sweet with it too! Both of our favorite colors are blue, just in different shades, so he alternated light and dark blue balloons along the entire path, increasing in number until the spot along the river that he planned to propose at, and there he used both colors together, to symbolize us coming together too.

He told me that all morning during church he had trouble focusing as he was trying to brainstorm where else to propose at. I’d foiled his original plans, haha. So now we like to joke that not only was I completely shocked by the proposal, but he was surprised too!

Afterward, we did go to where he’d originally planned to propose. Between everything, I no longer cared about my inferior footwear, especially as I felt a bit bad that I’d foiled his plans (he repeatedly told me not to though). And turns out it actually worked out better, because when we walked the path, only one lonely balloon was left where he tied it.

The only other remnants of all his hard work was another balloon stuck in some brambles in the river, and some random burst pieces here and there in some bushes. Everything else was completely gone.

I wouldn’t have cared one bit during the proposal, but we both agreed that he would have been bummed about it, so it all turned out for the best! And as if it was to make up for the missing balloons, while hiking the path, we stumbled across deer that let us get very close.

Below are a few of those pictures:

After a quick lunch and chatting about a possible date, we had the fun of going and telling both of our immediate families, then sharing the announcement with friends and extended family on Facebook.

The rest is history! Although we want to keep the big day simple (as much as possible with a huge family) we’ve done a lot of planning so far, and are quickly approaching the busiest months. In fact, it’s 99 days away today! It’s been busy, but we’re enjoying it.

And that’s our proposal story! Not without it’s hiccups, especially for my poor fiancé haha, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Despite all my making it more difficult for him – between talking about proposals and weddings beforehand, to changing the place, to suggesting we even walk somewhere run-down and gross – it was perfect.

I can see all the many ways God provided too, with beautiful weather, taking away my headache, having all our family members be home when we stopped by with the news (something that rarely happens). Even the date (the 23rd) has special significance to me. We’re very thankful for how it all worked out.

We even got to take our engagement pictures at both the proposal locations (original and actual). Here are a few of my favorite more private ones:

So with all that, thanks for sticking around and reading this entire novel! I hope you enjoyed it, and I really appreciate all the well wishes and prayers. We’ve been very blessed by the support.

Until next time, have a very merry Christmas! God bless you!

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