We're Getting Married!

Ben and I don't remember the first time we actually met, he just sort of appeared in my life. It must have been sometime my sophomore year of college (2014), because that was when Elizabeth and I became close friends, and Ben started hanging around more (Thanks, El). Throughout our last few years at Miami University, Ben became a regular at our gatherings. I always thought he was cute and funny, and we definitely hit off. Although we had a few close calls, the timing was never right for us while I was in college. I think it was pretty obvious to our friends that we sort of had a "thing", and my parents even remarked at my graduation party "Who is that boy who has been following you around all day?" I guess it wasn't subtle. Then Fall 2017, at a bonfire party that Elizabeth invited me to in Red River Gorge, we reconnected. Not long after that we started dating, and pretty soon we knew it was all meant to be. -Em

I knew I wanted to propose to Em at sunset in the red somewhere, but I also knew that would set off her alarm bells if I randomly asked her to go for a sunset hike since she did have some idea I was going to propose. To try to throw her off my scent I had floated the idea a few weeks earlier that we find a nice sunset overlook on my parents’ property. You’ll have to ask her how effective it was. So, the evening I planned on popping the question we were hanging out after dinner in the red and I asked Em If she wanted to go find a sunset overlook because it looked like it might be a good one! The sky was just starting to turn colors and I could tell It was going to be gorgeous. At this point she may have had a good sense of what was about to happen but luckily I had a little more in store for her than what she expected. I had asked my brother Doug to look around for the perfect overlook, which he found the weekend before, and clear a trail to it. Then I had him sneak off and pre place some twinkly lights, a picnic blanket, and some Champaign on ice at the site and to hang out to get some photos of the proposal. Unfortunately, I didn’t read his direction well enough and there may have been a bit of bushwhacking on our hike out to the overlook. But we eventually did find it and as soon as Emily had fully digested the scene that we found, lights, Champaign, sunset, etc. I’m sure she knew exactly what was happening so I wasted no time in getting down on my knee and repeating the words I had rehearsed over in my head so many times in the prior days and fought through tears to make it to the final “Will you marry me?” and she said YES!! I owe Doug a huge thanks for setting everything up and getting pictures even if they were just of the reenactment because he missed the real thing stuck in a tree. -Ben