We are engaged! I travel down to Florida a lot because my family has a house there. I'm a teacher so on all my breaks I head down to Florida. For spring break I was planning on going of course, but Nick said he wanted to go for a long weekend because long story long he starts a new job Monday and could come down for a few days. Which I was shocked about him planning this out! Now for the back story.
Nick and I started seeing each other in March 2021. We started living together casually August 2021, officially around Thanksgiving break 2021. In November of 2021 I made him go to Kay Jewelers with me because we passed one on the way to dinner and to my surprise he turned around and we went! Picture below from that night!
On the ring trip we looked at a few different shapes and sizes of diamonds. I had always wanted a princess cut, or square as I call it, since childhood, but ones I saw on Pinterest that I liked were round. Nick preferred the round. I told Nick he could pick, but I knew he would probably go with the round because he said he liked it a lot. My preference was a thin, plain band with one diamond.
So fast forward to October 2022 Nick got me a ring. I guess he went somewhere by where he was working and asked his dad to go with him. He said that he did look at round diamonds first, but he just didn't like any of them when they were compared to the princess cut. He couldn't believe how many different colors and clarity of diamonds there were (same because I know nothing about this lol). He also wanted to get a ring THAT day. (He's like that, he gets his mind on something and gets it lol.) So the rounds they had he just didn't care for and he went with a princess cut. He said he didn't like the plain band and thought it looked better with little diamonds on the side so that's what he went with! To say I was surprised by the ring is an understatement because I truly had no idea he was going with the princess cut, which I think deep down I wanted more! I even randomly asked (probably in October) if he got the ring yet because I think I like the square more. He probably was thinking thank God! haha
Okay back to the story. So December 2022 we were supposed to spend Christmas in Florida. Well December 23rd rolls around and a blizzard happens that cancels all flights out. I had a SLIGHT inkling that he MIGHT propose on that trip because when he was on Instagram I saw the photographer we used in August 2022 in his DMS and as I asked why she messaged him I was like OMG maybe he's planning to propose. Spoiler Alert: I was right lol. I should have known when my dad who goes to bed at 9PM got out of bed and was looking for flights out. We couldn't get out though. The flights were all canceled for days and then when they finally had flights going out they were like 2,000 dollars...
Then he thought about New Years Eve, but then I was annoyed at him lol so it wasn't really a perfect time. Mind you, I still have no idea besides that little tiny inkling.
So spring break comes along and he basically plans out this trip so my neighbors (who are like my sisters) are 100% sure that he is proposing on this trip lol. When I say plan, I mean he told me the dates lol normally I'm the date teller, flight booker, plan maker, etc. I was 50/50. I knew he wanted to catch me off guard so I was thinking he might NOT do it in Florida because that was his original plan.
We went on my morning walk on my favorite beach. We walked probably a good hour. I asked a lady to take a picture of us and Nick said this is when he was going to do it because he knew I'd ask for a picture. However, the lady was dropping things and seemed flustered so he decided not to do it then, but he had the ring in his bathing suit so he needed to do it at some point lol. So a few minutes later he's like okay I can't wait (or something, I blacked out haha) and then handed me a box. I knew what it was of course, but I was also in shock lol. I have no idea what he said and then he got down on one knee and I was so surprised by the square diamond and it was just a whirlwind!
I also really had no idea he was doing it then because I facetimed Kaylee and Fallyn. That was my plan because they said if you facetime we will know you're engaged so I planned to randomly facetime Kaylee, Fal, and Channing throughout the trip in case it did happen then they would be surprised at the time I did facetime them thinking I was just facetiming to say hi.
Then we saw another person and I said can you take a picture we just got engaged and she takes that cut off picture and didn't even seem to care haha. It is so special to me though because Vanderbilt beach is my HAPPY place. I walk on that beach every day I'm here and just think of how happy I am to be there. So he did a good job!
When he tried to put it on my finger it was NOT going. As you can see my fingers were soooo swollen. I thought it was because I had gained weight, but it's fine now. It was fine later when I was out of the sun too. I think I was swollen from flying, I've heard that can happen. I couldn't even get it off at first and now I can easily!
So that's it. That's the story! I am looking forward to surprising my kindergarteners at school. I wanted to try and surprise by dance girls, but waiting would be too long because I won't see them until Friday at competition. Plus Nick wanted to post about it and they all follow him lol.
I will share our journey with this whole wedding slash engagement thing! Thanks for reading. :)