John and I have been going out since May. Like a typical Mormon couple, it didn't take long for marriage to come up. So John and I, seeing how utterly and completely perfect for each other we were (haha), decided that we would most likely get married. Through this we picked out a time frame with a tentative date and temple, we told our families the tentative plan, and I even bought a dress (he told me I could!), and a few other things. We were unofficially engaged, so to speak. John had to make up for that fact so that getting "really" engaged would still be special. :) I knew that he would propose soon, so I tried to guess when. I had it in my mind that it would be over Thanksgiving, even though I had nothing telling me that.
When I asked John what our plans were for the weekend before Thanksgiving, he suggested we go see a concert by Vocal Point (BYU's Men's A capella group) that his best friend was performing in. I was excited to see that, so it thoroughly distracted me from any indication that Friday night would be something else. John and I go on many dates, it's one trait I'm lucky he has -- every girl should find a guy who will always love to take her on dates -- and many of them are dressy and nice. So when he told me Wednesday that we were going to skip out on Vocal Point and go on a nice date instead, I thought nothing of it. I was a little disappointed not to go to Vocal Point, and I recognized that our nice dates have generally been for a reason...but in my mind he was going to propose over Thanksgiving, so why should I suspect anything?
I'm used to seeing a lot of John during my day, so when I didn't see or hear from him pretty much all day Friday, I thought that was a little strange...but then again, that happens at times, and he was going to propose over Thanksgiving...so why should I suspect anything? While I was getting ready for the date, my mind started nagging me. What if he proposes tonight? Silly Brin, he's proposing next week, why would he propose today? He's not proposing today. But what if he does? Nope. Today's just going to be a fun date because John's like that, that's all. Hush.
John called, telling me he'd be late because he got caught up with a few things. That happens all the time, no big deal. Definitely nothing to make me suspect.
John came, told me I'm gorgeous, and as we were walking out the door he grabbed one of my scarves. No big deal, he's done that before, even walked behind me to put it on me. Normal, right? But then he put it over my eyes. Uh, John, that's not where it goes, and you're messing up my makeup. A surprise? What the heck? Ah, that's okay, I told myself it was going to be a fun date, right? So he leads me out of my apartment, and down the stairs, passing a friend of mine, I'm laughing and totally scared. Going down stairs is not fun blindfolded. I thought I knew my building, but nothing's where it should be when you can't see it. Anyway, so he leads me out into the cold, trying to guide me down steps and through cars. I hear a car running. John never leaves his car running when he comes to get me. Yet we go past the first row of cars where he usually parks and he leads me straight to the car that's running. He opens the door for me, I'm pretty sure it's not the front door, and he guides me to sit down. I sit down in a soft, cushy, warm seat. Definitely not John's car. He comes to sit next to me and somebody else sifts gear and starts to drive in the front seat. There's soft, romantic music playing. I would be confused...if it weren't for the fact that John told me several times about his friend who bought a Limo. So I'm in a Limo. Blindfolded. But John's proposing next week, so this is just for fun...right?
We drive around, and John tells me to guess where we're going for dinner. How in the world am I supposed to guess? Uh... "I have no idea." That's about it. "We're having Italian." Uh...that's supposed to help? "Olive Garden??" Why is Olive Garden so special? We're riding along, and the driver turns south. Olive Garden is North. I'm racking my brain, trying to think of Italian restaurants in Logan...maybe there was one he mentioned one time? The driver turns in somewhere. I'm supposed to guess where we are. "We're not at Olive Garden, because he turned left and Olive Garden is right." We get out, John guides me somewhere, we pass someone when we go through some doors, then we go up stairs. A ton of stairs. About half-way up I'm completely confused. It's dead silent, I'm going up a ton of wide stairs, and we're supposed to have dinner here? I know of absolutely nowhere in Logan we could be. Maybe I'm wrong and we did go to Olive Garden, and he somehow booked the whole place. But I don't remember this many stairs at Olive Garden.
He finally takes off the scarf, and we're in the Logan LDS tabernacle. Well that makes sense, but why on earth are we here? I look down and he's on his knees. WHAT? He's proposing next week, what is he doing? I haven't had time to prepare and get ready for this to be all romantic and cute, I'm too flustered because I'm completely confused. He holds up his cupped hands, and opens them. There's nothing there. Relief. He's just teasing. "Wanna go back to my place and watch a movie?" Goose. Of course.
Now you have to understand that John has fake proposed many times before, and teased about fake proposing countless times. As a side note, for my birthday he took me out to this cute little restaurant by his Mom's house for dinner. This is a very little but very popular place, so it's crowded. After we'd been staring into each other's eyes adoringly, thinking about the month we'd been together, he got off his chair down onto the crowded space on the floor next to my chair. Pulled his hands up all cupped, and asked, "Wanna go back to my Mom's and watch a movie?" Unfortunately no one reacted. I didn't buy it for a second, we'd only been dating for three weeks, and long-distance at that. But no one else even cared that this guy may have just proposed. :( Ridiculous. :)
Anyway, back to that special Friday night. He got up, we laughed, and we went on a tour of the empty Tabernacle. I'm thinking, trying to figure out what's going on. John's proposing next week, right? This whole thing was to trick me like he's always said he would. We're just having a fun night. Okay. Good. See, he's even asking if he tricked me. Yeah, for a second, but it didn't surprise me when it wasn't true. Fantastic :) We get to the choir seats, and I see the grand piano. Um..."Are you going to play for me?" "If you want me to." Dang it, so that's not why we're there. As he's playing around on the piano, I keep thinking. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is for real. It's rather impressive if it is...and I never had anything to really tell me that it would be over Thanksgiving anyway...
He sits next to me on the choir seats and we talk. In walk two guys with their guitars. That's funny. Sorry guys, we're just having a romantic moment, go practice somewhere else. But they sit on the pew behind us, set down a recorder, and start playing. Within notes I start bawling my eyes out. It's "1234" by Plain White Tee's ("There's only one thing to do three words for you...I love you."). A few months back I had been listening to the words and decided it fit John and I quite nicely, so I put it as my phone ringtone for him. He'd been humming it nearly nonstop for about a week. I couldn't deny it anymore, this was it. He sang along at bits and I tried to salvage any hope my makeup had, which was useless since I couldn't stop crying for the life of me. But that's okay, I didn't really want to. After the song was done, I clapped all stupidly and thanked the guys, assuming this part was done. As I did that, he got on his knees again, but this time he pulled something out. A gorgeous ring I had picked out myself :) He said something...I don't remember at all what it was, but I said "...yeah" (though he doesn't remember) because that's what I said when he first asked me if he could kiss me (for those of you who get it...you have permission to laugh at me), and he put it on my finger. How cute. The guys recorded the whole thing, so someday we'll be able to hear it and hopefully we won't find out we didn't get engaged at all. :P
They leave, and after I'm done mopping my face off and kissing my wonderful now fiance, we leave as well. As we leave I meet the guy John arranged with to have the place to ourselves. How nice. We got back to the limo, I got to meet the driver and ride for a bit in the limo without the blindfold. But the night was not over, so he put it back on me.
"Guess where we're going for dinner." This again? But now I get that it's special, (restaurants aren't) and I have an idea which direction we're headed. "Did your Aunt make us dinner?" (He has some relatives who live near Logan and we've gone to visit the lovely old couple a few times) "Nope, better." "Um...your Mom made us dinner." "You'll see." I'm quite sure where we're headed, and I know when we've gotten there. He leads me inside the house and back to the kitchen. He sits me down at the table and lights candles, then takes off the blindfold. He serves me an Italian dinner he made. =D It takes about five times as long as usual to eat because we're being all gushy and romantically gross. He bought himself an engagement ring (he wanted to try out the amazing tungsten to see what size he needed, and he says that if I get one he gets one) so I took it, got on my knee and sort of proposed to him, which he didn't expect.
After dinner we got back in the limo, this time I could fully enjoy it, and his friend explained all the cool features and stories that go along with a limo. He took us back to USU's student center, because the night was still not over. I had no idea what we were doing there either, but I can wait. I follow John all the way to this back, out-of-the-way room, a fireplace lounge of sorts. There was romantic music playing, so we start dancing. How cute, again. :) He even dipped me and kissed me :P That finished the official night, since of course you can't finish a date like that with a movie, which is what we did after. One of the very few times a year he'll willingly agree to a chick flick, so we watched The Notebook.
That, my dears, is how John proposed :)
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