We’re getting married!

Originally, proposing to Claire was going to be fairly straightforward. Cute, kinda romantic, and personal but nothing super complicated or fancy. For months I had been telling her I wasn't going to propose until we had been dating at LEAST 2 years, which would have been the end of Nov 2022. I knew she was the one well before that and decided waiting that long was just me being stubborn. I kept telling her it wouldn't be until the end of Nov or Dec or even later. I ended up buying the ring beginning of July. I set up the time to ask for permission to marry her a couple days before my family's annual hunting trip at the beginning of September. Thankfully I was given permission to marry her (thought i would make that clear in case you weren't sure). My plan was to surprise her when she drove over on Friday. There is an overlook that has a pretty view and is the best location for cell reception about 20 minutes from the ranch we were staying at. So, when she arrived I was going to drive up there with her so she could check-in with people before being out of service for days. I had already been at the ranch for a few days and knew there were a couple of large wildfires burning nearby. Since they were supposed to be burning in another direction, we didn’t worry too much about them. I went out for a morning hunt on Friday (the day Claire was set to arrive) and when I reached a point with cell service, my phone started buzzing like crazy. The fires had grown significantly and we were now on a level 3 “go now” evacuation. I was able to get a hold of my mom who had evacuated to Joseph 2.5 hours earlier and was there with Claire and my sister, who had driven over that day. In talking to her, we realized they had grabbed almost all of our stuff from the ranch but had missed the ring. I ran back to the ranch and grabbed what stuff was left (most importantly, the ring) and headed to Joseph to meet up with everyone else. We all drove home that night after meeting up. My fairly straightforward plan to propose had become fairly complicated. A lot of people knew I was going to propose to her that day so it was only a matter of time before someone accidentally let it slip. She rode with me for part of the trip home, with the engagement ring in the glove box right in front of her. Luckily I had locked the glove box because she had tried to open it looking for napkins at one point (talk about a heart stopping moment trying to explain why it was locked). The next morning, I did some brainstorming with my parents trying to find a good place and a reason to get Claire there. I decided on a spot that was kind of secluded with a view. I asked Claire if she wanted to meet up at my parents to have dinner with them and Grandma. After she arrived at my parents’, we said there was an open house at a place that might be good for a bridal shower and asked if she would she like to go check it out. After some convincing, she agreed. Now that we are finally there, surprise, surprise there was no open house and Claire was confused. We went around the back of the building where the view is and my mom got setup to take a picture of us when I in my incomparable smoothness said “oh wait, I have to tie my shoe really quick” (I don't even own shoes with laces). Claire goes "what? You don't have laces" She looked down and I'm there ring in hand. Immediately she says,“no, no, no,” while backing away (which are not words you want to hear while proposing by the way). She followed that up with “no, I'm in sweatpants! Spoiler alert, she did end up saying yes. She had been planning on dressing nice for all of Nov so that way she would look good for pictures just in case I popped the question at an unexpected time. Well, I popped it about 2 months sooner than she thought I would. So, that's how my fairly straightforward, kind of cute but simple proposal plan became extremely stressful, not simple, but still, thankfully, came to fruition.