Matthew was helping put on a career fair at Pawhuska High School and the school had asked local businesses and vendors to come set up a booth for students to come and speak to them about career opportunities and for us to be able to tell our story of how we got to where we were. As a former manager of The Pioneer Woman Mercantile, I was asked to be present. I was late, and frazzled. I set up and the thing starts! During an intersession period, Matt walks over, introduces himself and proceeds to make small talk. When the next round of students came through he excused himself and went on his way. I dismissed the conversation thinking he was networking (lol I'm dumb). After the whole thing was over he came back over to me as I'm trying to leave (more like hobbling out), hands FULL and he asks if I had a business card on hand. I respond with "oh, uh, suuure." and proceed to awkwardly drop everything on the ground at once. I finally find one, hand it over and say "You can just shoot me an email". The story would've been even cuter if he had actually done that but instead he realized my cell phone number was also on there and gave it a try! So now here we are almost a year later and loving this life we get to build together!!

The plan was to move to Tennessee in October but I decided last minute (August) to pack up and head that way! Matt told me the Friday before leaving that he was able to take off work and help me get settled for the first half of the week. Little did I know his original plan was to propose in October the first week I was out here but had to move it to this week because of my last minute change. We travel and get in late Mon, the 12th. Tuesday I head to my first job interview, then straight focus on interview #2. Matt and I decide to drive around a little bit. He asked if he could run into Walmart, I said sure but I was staying in the car. We found out there was a huge storm headed in, Matt had the whole proposal set up for outside so Walmart was where he hid to make plan B happen (me still oblivious). The plan was to go to dinner that night to celebrate my cousin's birthday and Matt tells me that he booked reservations at this rooftop bar. This escalated into a fight because he knew what the plan was and I got irritated that he decided to make his own plan (me not knowing a thing, the "dinner" was a ploy to get me out) he just slipped on this one. Second interview went great, I get back to the house and everyone is dressed and ready! We head to this bar that I find out "was a surprise for my cousin" cough, cover up, cough. We get to this BEAUTIFUL place and they put us right in the middle. This place is PACKED. People everywhere mingling. We take some pictures outside and get settled. All of a sudden the music goes off and people get quiet. Out of the corner of my eye I see this guitar player walking up. He's playing Marry You by Bruno Mars. At first I thought he was a surprise for my cousin so I look over to see her reaction and all eyes and cameras are on me. THEN, IN THAT MOMENT, IT HIT ME. I look over and Matt is on one knee and the tears flood down. Needless to say this girl was SURPRISED and it was one of the greatest nights we both will cherish forever <3