Bride-to-be Blogger Carly: The Proposal

I have to give Sean a lot of credit here. He completely surprised me—like, I had no clue whatsoever that on May 12, 2012, I was going to get engaged to this amazing man. Don’t get me wrong, Sean and I had certainly talked about marriage—but I didn’t even know my own ring size, so how could he?

Earlier that week, Sean mentioned that he had made plans for us to go out to brunch with his sister, brother-in-law, and adorable niece Quinn (our flower girl!) on Saturday morning. We were going to drive down to Wilmington and meet them at a “new” restaurant that had just opened near their house.

The night before our brunch date Sean and I were discussing some friends who had recently gone ring shopping together. Sean asked if that was something we should plan to do together and (though I was somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t even thought about rings yet) I said that was something we could plan on doing. Little did I know that Sean had secretly taken my dad out for dinner to ask his approval two months before!

Around noon that Saturday we got in the car and headed down to Wilmington. As we were getting close to “the restaurant,” Sean told me he had gotten a text message from his sister that Quinn was still napping and she had moved the reservation back 45 minutes. Sean asked what I thought we should do to kill time before meeting his family, when we were about to pass a little spot near the Brandywine River where we used to take walks when we first started dating. Since it was such a beautiful May day, Sean, seeming casual, suggested we stop at our spot and sit outside. I agreed, feeling nostalgic for those butterfly-filled days of our new relationship. We pulled into the gravel lot and made our way to a stone wall facing the river. We stood and reminisced for a few minutes about how happy we were when our romance first started when Sean asked, “Do you think we could do this for the rest of our lives?”

My heartbeat picked up…”What? Be together? Be happy? Of course!”

“Well,” he said, “then I have something to ask you…” (THUMP!THUMP!THUMP!THUMP!) I turned around to face him and there he was, on his knee with an open box containing the ring of my dreams. “Will you marry me?”

Now, truthfully, I think I blacked out from excitement in that moment. But I know I did a whole lot of jumping up and down and exclaiming, “I had no idea! Oh my gosh! AHHHHHHHH!” But it wasn’t until Sean prompted me that I remembered the most important word: “YES!” I have to tell you, I am a crier. Ask any of my friends and they’ll confirm, Oh, Carly, yep, she’s a real crier. But much to both Sean’s and my surprise, I barely shed a tear. I was so overwhelmed with surprise that I couldn’t do anything but grin from ear to ear.

Sean’s sister, the only person who was in on the plan, soon came to take pictures for us and toast us with celebratory Blue Moons, my favorite—thanks Rach! And, since apparently there was no restaurant or reservation, we followed our photo sesh with lunch at the bar where we first met, Catherine Rooney’s. It was the perfect day and I feel so very lucky to have such a thoughtful guy to create it for us.

Were you completely and totally surprised by your proposal? Or did you kinda know it was coming?

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