Our Engagement Story

Drew and I got engaged on July 11th of this year, and ever since then I’ve been meaning to do a post about that special day. Three months late is better than never, right? I’ve always wanted to be completely surprised and blindsided by a proposal, and that’s exactly what Drew did. Our engagement story is one of the happiest memories of my life, and I’m so excited to finally share it with all of you!

The Surprise

It was a Wednesday and I was shooting that afternoon with my friend and photographer Kristin for an Owensboro Living magazine spread. I had texted my mom and sister-in-law, Jasey, earlier in the week telling them about this perfect little white dress I was going to be wearing for one of the photos, and going on and on about how perfect it would be if I was a bride to be. Little did I know, Drew was already planning on proposing during the shoot, and my mom wanted to be sure I was wearing that dress.

We had four looks to shoot that day, and we were planning on taking the pictures around my uncle’s pool after work. Kristin had been talking with Drew all week about the details, and the plan was to get me in the white dress last and convince me to shoot at my mom’s house so he could propose. I had invited my mom and Drew, my brother and Jasey over to my uncles thinking they would come have a beer while we shot and then we could all go eat Mexican after. Basically I had no idea I was making all of their plans more difficult than they had to be.

When Kristin came to pick me up I was wearing the white dress already, and she secretly went into panic mode (and hid it well!) about the fact that I was not supposed to be wearing that dress yet. It was so hot that day, and I wanted to do that look first because I didn’t want to sweat on the white.

I threw another wrench in the plan by bringing everything with us but the kitchen sink. Normally when we take photos it doesn’t take us too long because we’ve gotten the hang of it, but of course this time I decide I want to pack up and bring my entire bar cart to shoot with, and enlist Jasey to bring over an inflatable swan and have them blow it up for a photo and then deflate it right after. Keep in mind that Drew is waiting patiently for me to get finished with my shoot and I’m taking all the time in the world.

When we got to the pool, Kristin did some test shots and convinced me that the white dress would look much better if we shot it on my mom’s front porch after the others, and I didn’t think it was odd because she knows what she’s talking about with photography, although I was a little grumpy because I was more than a little bit sweaty already (I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry I ended up buying the dress!)

When we had finished shooting the other three looks, Kristin told me to go ahead and put the white dress back on so we didn’t waste time and miss lighting when we got to my mom’s house. I also should mention that everyone that I thought was coming over to my uncle’s place never showed. My brother texted me saying he was getting off work late, and that he would just meet me at mom’s before we all went to eat. Drew texted me soon after saying that he was just going to meet my brother over there to have a beer, and I didn’t think that was weird because guys weren’t too interested in watching a blog shoot anyway. However, I did think that everyone ditched me!

We finally pull up to my parent’s house and Kristin says we should probably just go straight to the front porch to shoot before we go say hi to everyone because the sun was starting to go down. Again, sis knows what she’s talking about, so I just went with it.

She’s taking what I think are test shots while I get ready to pose on the front porch, and I look up as Drew walks out the front door. I didn’t think this was odd because I knew he was over there, but usually after work he keeps his scrubs on, and he looked so nice and dressed up for Mexican on a Wednesday. When he walked out I looked at him and said, “Well, you look nice! What are you doing so dressed up?” He kissed me and said something amazingly wonderful that I can’t for the life of me remember because it was such a blur, but I do remember the will you marry me part, of course.

Not suspecting a darn thing.

Any of you that have gotten engaged know what I’m talking about; it just doesn’t feel real when it happens! I felt like he was pretending, like this couldn’t actually be the moment and I couldn’t actually have had no idea what was going on. When he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife I melted and sat on his knee and kissed him, never mind that my Spanx were out and about. Here’s a great pic of this I’ll share with you guys. I didn’t exactly post it on Instagram.

Spanx Alert

The best part about our engagement story is that our families were inside watching the entire thing. It meant so much to me that Drew proposed in front of the house my dad grew up in, which is now our family home. It was so special for him to involve our families like that, and made it feel like my dad got to be a part of it in some way.

When I realized our families were watching inside!

Another great thing is that Drew got to ask my dad for his permission to marry me. My dad passed away on April 2nd, and he got to ask him a few months before. The best part about this is that my dad understood what he was saying. He wasn’t doing very good at the time, and rarely could decipher what we said to him and vice versa, but when Drew asked him, clear as day he said, “That’s good.” Drew doing that means more to me than he could ever know. My dad loved him, and would be so excited for our journey ahead.

Thanks so much for reading our engagement story, and be checking the blog in the future for more and more wedding updates and details!