We're Getting Married!

F: The incomparable producer, event planner, matchmaker extraordinaire & then Stone Island employee, Sofia Hurtado, told me she had someone she thought I should meet at her new job. So, I dressed in my cutest nanny active wear clothes and stopped by one day. When I arrived at the address, I was shocked because, Stone Island, was directly in the path I used to walk to work almost every day and I had never paid attention to the store. Once inside, Sofia showed me around and Benzell, who was working as the Assistant Manager at the time, briefly greeted me and went back to "managing the store, since someone was distracting all the other employees" (his words). I think he was taken aback by all my beauty and needed a moment to collect himself. Shortly there-after, Sofia asked me what I thought of B and I told her that I didn't know enough about him. Thanks to #ScorpioSeason two friends of mine were were having birthday drinks at a Hollywood bar in a couple of weeks. Sofia told me she would invite B so I could get a chance to talk to him in a low pressure setting. Sofia kept her word, inviting B & some co-workers. When the night finally came, I asked Sofia if Benzell would be coming and she said yes. So, I wore my brand new, almost skin tight, magenta crush velvet jumpsuit and heels. Benzell worked that night, so I arrived to the b-day celebration before him. I was nervous he wasn't going to come. I kept asking Sofia for updates! haha. Once he arrived, Benzell walked in with a smile on his face and that classic swag of his. He greeted everyone and after chatting with the group for a bit, he offered to buy me a drink and I gleefully accepted. We ended up chatting all night, he got my number, after asking twice (my bad), and the rest is hers&history.

F: For my birthday on 11/18/2018 Benzell bought us tickets to visit my favorite city, NYC for Valentine's Day 2019. When I told people about this they immediately thought B was going to propose on the trip, I did NOT. EVERYONE asked me, my sister, my friends, even my students! To hear B tell it, he didn't develop the plan until January 2019!!! After landing on the 13th, we decided walking the Brooklyn Bridge was the 1st major thing we were going to do in the city on V-Day. 2/14/19, we wake up early, get dressed and head to the bridge. As we walk, Benzell becomes very obsessed with finding "The Middle of The Bridge." Once he finds it, we also magically find an empty bench, the only empty bench we'd seen on the bridge thus far! We sit and B begins a speech about our past and future and I begin to wonder if he's going to propose. But, I don't want to get my hopes up so I immediately push that thought out of my head and try to focus. There's a small pause in his speech, as I try to think of something to say, he stands up, takes his bag off and gets down on one knee and pulls a ring from his pocket!!! I am unable to grasp reality at this point, I grab my face and yell 3x "ARE YOU SERIOUS??" Not my greatest improv moment. B yells back, "YES! CAN YOU ANSWER MY QUESTION?!" And I say "YES!" He puts the ring on me, I proceed to have an internal and external freak out on the bench for ~10 mins. We're so caught up, we take 0 pictures together and we proceed to walk off the bridge together forever changed. I don't remember much of his speech, but, I do know B said he chose the bridge because he wanted it to represent the journey of life. He wanted us to start the journey as bf & gf and to end it as fiancees. I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect than that.