Need to catch up? How We Met | How We Started Dating | A Summer of Dating

As I mentioned in the last post, Kyle took me ring shopping on my 20th birthday, August 28th. I already had the type of ring I wanted in mind, so we went to one ring store, and I showed him a few different styles I liked. A few days later, he picked me up from work and took me to another store, where unbeknownst to me, he had already gone and picked out a few other rings, similar to the ones I had shown him before. And one of those rings was the one. I told him yes yes yes to that ring, and that was that. Around this same time, we had already discussed when we wanted to get married, and we decided on that next May. For some that might seem quite soon, but in Mormon culture, especially as we believe in waiting to have sex until marriage, that was a long time. But it felt right for us (and we didn’t want a cold, snowy wedding) and what we had going on over the next few months. Because of this, I figured that Kyle wouldn’t propose until at least November, but probably not even until January or February! Little did I know….

September 13, 2009 was a Sunday. We went to church together, and then decided to go on a little picnic by the Provo Temple before heading up to Kyle’s brother’s house for family dinner. During church Kyle kept commenting on the weather, as it was a little overcast and was sprinkling, which I thought was a little weird, because it wasn’t a big deal if we couldn’t go on our picnic, because it was something we regularly did, so we could just do it another day.

It warmed up, though, and we headed out just like we had planned. After we ate, we started reading a devotional about love and unity. At that time, we had been trying to read the scriptures or devotionals together every day, so that wasn’t strange for us. We got to a certain spot, and Kyle stopped reading, and started telling me how much he loved me, and how excited he was to marry me. I thought he was just being sweet, so I said something like, “Aw, thanks.” and then started moving on in our reading. He then told me to stand up, which made me so confused. Why would I do that? In fact, I’m pretty sure I did ask “Why?” to which he replied, “I’m going to propose to you!”

I stood up, still so confused, and then he got down on one knee, pulled the ring out of his pocket, and asked me to marry him. I’m sure I said yes at some point, but to be honest those few minutes are a complete blur because I was so in shock and not expecting that at all! After we hugged and kissed and talked for a few minutes, we grabbed our stuff and went back to Kyle’s car, where a dozen red roses, a card, and the ring box had magically appeared on the passenger’s seat. It turns out Kyle’s roommates were in on the whole thing and were at that moment taking pictures of us.

They then came down and snapped a few more pictures before driving away.

As it turns out, Kyle had gone back and bought the ring, but because of my small ring size, they had to custom make the ring because if they just re-sized the one in store there was a great chance the small diamonds would fall out. Custom making the ring was supposed to take 4-6 weeks (it ended up taking 8, but that’s another story…) so Kyle decided to propose with a “loaner ring” – a simple solitaire setting, but with my diamond in it.

I’ve never had a professional picture of my ring taken (we forgot to on the wedding day! and as you can see above we took our engagements before the real ring came in) but I love it so much. I have the ring and the band soldered together, and I just love the simplicity and beauty of my ring.

Next up? A little bit about our engagement, plus some wedding planning.