Gabriela Cruz Diaz

and

Robert Laurence Burdick

Gabriela Cruz Diaz

and

Robert Laurence Burdick

September 19, 2025

Mapleton, UT

82 days82 d18 hours18 h20 minutes20 min52 seconds52 s

How We Met

September 2017

We first crossed paths through our coworkers. Gabby’s coworker at the courthouse was married to one of Robert’s colleagues. They had been telling Robert about this mysterious “Gabby” who rarely came out to socialize. However, they were determined to get her to come out of hiding, at which point they would notify Robert to drop by. One day, Robert finally got the message that the ever-so-elusive Gabby had accepted their invitation to meet up with them. Of course, this also happened to be the day Robert was traveling back to town from a week-long camping trip and hadn’t showered in days. Nonetheless, Robert rushed back to town to clean up and quickly went over to meet them before he lost his chance. Things were going well until Gabby suddenly mentioned a family emergency and asked to be taken home immediately. Robert, thinking this might be an excuse to cut things short with him, agreed to drive her home with the hope of staying friends. However, before he could even stop the car or exchange contact info, she was gone. Without social media, Gabby was surprisingly hard to track down in rural Battle Mountain. To pass the time, Robert started working weekends at a local golf course. He confided in one of his coworkers there about his encounter with Gabby and told this coworker to keep his feelings toward Gabby a secret. The golf course was also where the small-town gossip queens of Battle Mountain, who also worked with Gabby at the courthouse, would go to meet up after work. Naturally, this secret didn’t last long, and the ladies all found out about Robert’s predicament. The courthouse ladies all banded together to get Gabby’s number with permission to give it to Robert. After all that, we finally reconnected at a local high school football game where she had her sister Maleni join us, and have been together ever since.

The Proposal

August 2023

It all started when Robert finally found the ring. After a few attempts at trying to find a ring online (yes, a few times) and the subsequent returns that followed, Robert knew that he would have to devise a plan to secretly visit the jeweler when Gabby was not with him in the city. One day he found the perfect opportunity to sneak to the jewelry store during his lunch when he was in Reno for a work meeting. He finally found the perfect ring and proceeded to hide it in a safe in his office, which was the only secure location from the prying eyes of Gabby. After a few months, Gabby unintentionally found out about Robert’s plan to propose. Robert knew the proposal had to be at outside at the golf course, which was ultimately the place that brought them together. With the winter months quickly approaching, and the element of surprise lost, Robert continued to wait for the right moment to pop the question. Robert had it all planned out. He decided to tell Gabby that he had been ordered to a fire assignment, so that he could fly under the radar while secretly preparing for the proposal. Robert vowed to himself not to tell a single soul about his plan until the day of the proposal, to avoid anymore delays. The day before the proposal, after everything had been arranged according to plan, Gabby reminded Robert that it was her stepdad Vidal’s birthday the next day. Therefore, Robert immediately reached out to her family and told them about his plans. They all told him to carry on as planned, because everyone had been waiting far too long for this moment to delay another second. It ended up being the perfect cover, since everyone dressed up for the birthday dinner. Gabby’s sister, Maleni, then helped to get Gabby to the golf course by telling her she needed help picking up Vidal’s birthday present there. After all that, the wait was worth it, and it ended up being the perfect moment. Maleni was able to capture the proposal and the rest of the family joined shortly after.

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