Shane's Proposal

Today, on August 17, it has been 3 years since Shane proposed to me in Houston, TX! I am so appreciative of this day and every day that has come since.

Our proposal was pure perfection and one of the best days of our lives, as you can hopefully tell from our faces in the pics below. We were so blessed to have a friend from church, Amanda Mott, take these pictures as Shane was proposing. 

If you don't know the story, here is the story I previously shared on our wedding website:

We fully started hinting at marriage and loosely discussing it before Shane left for the military. When he called me on the first, very memorable, phone call he could make after 3 weeks of no contact, that’s when we very seriously began talking about marriage from then on. We started to dream up ideas for wedding planning and very seriously had frequent and consistent talks about our future. Many of my friends said they forgot that we weren’t actually engaged because of how we were planning and talking! We had been completely assured for awhile that this was blessedly a forever thing, and we just had to work around the logistics of being a military couple in order to make it a reality.

Shane asked my dad’s permission over 4th of July weekend when we were visiting my family in Illinois. Shane didn’t know that this conversation with my dad was supposed to be a surprise for the bride, and he felt this was a decision we were making together and there was no need for it to be a surprise, so I knew what was going to happen that weekend. Therefore, everyone else I came in contact with also knew this conversation was going to happen this weekend- EVERYONE except for my dad! Shane’s first tip for not-yet-engaged couples is to “NOT TELL THE BRIDE!”, as he literally shooed me and my mom away right after he had the conversation because we had so many questions. Shane said that it was a special moment for my dad and him, and that it wasn’t his place to share what happened, but my dad could tell me about the conversation if he wanted to. Let’s just say, they both spent the rest of the day in a great mood! This picture below was taken right after he had that conversation with my dad!

That being said, I thought I knew absolutely everything about our engagement that was upcoming. That turned into Shane flying down to COMPLETELY surprise me to propose in a perfect way even better than I had imagined, two weeks earlier than I thought! On August 17, 2019, my best friend, Stephanie, and I were shopping for her nursery, which turned into last minute “meeting a photographer and checking out maternity pic locations” for her around Buffalo Bayou. After me texting Shane while walking around there (thinking he’s in Virginia still), telling Stephanie this would be a great place for engagement pics, and commenting on how someone had our song playing on speakers (Girl Down in Texas- Josh Abbott Band), I refused, multiple times, to go where Stephanie was leading me because I saw the back of some guy on a bench with a photographer, and I thought we were in the background ruining their pictures- I even walked away and left her there. Now, I don’t know how absolutely none of this clicked! It turns out that the guy on the bench was my love!!! In pure shock, my first words to him were “SHUT UP!!!” My second thought was remembering how, a week after our first date, I fell to my knees crying and thanking God. I didn’t know what exactly it was at that time, but I had a pretty good feeling it was this.

Enjoy just some of our favorite pics from this very special day!

After the proposal, we FaceTimed our families and a few close friends...then I had just an hour to get ready for our surprise engagement party that Shane and Stephanie planned at a bar in Houston!

Huge thanks to Stephanie, as always, for ALL she did for this amazing engagement party!

The next morning, we headed to church! We were enjoying our 24 hours we had together before Shane had to get back to Virginia for military training.

We even took a pic in the parking lot right outside of the baseball fields at church- where we had our first kiss years earlier!

Thanks for following along with celebrating these precious engagement memories...before all of the wedding events/planning went south due to COVID hah. It was such a memorable day that we are both so grateful for!