We're Getting Married!!!

In January of 2017, our friend Bennett was having a surprise birthday party. We both knew Bennett through different people and circumstances, but we both ended up with an invite. We showed up to the party that night, expecting to have some fun and laughs with friends. We saw each other across a mildly crowded living room and a game of cards. And then, despite Nathan supposedly being set up with another girl that night, he spent the whole night talking with me until we shut the party down! And so it all began.

After being friends and hanging out for several months, Nathan decided he was gonna shoot his shot! So one night when we were texting back and forth, he asked if I wanted to grab dinner downtown after work one night. I immediately said yes! But I was....a little oblivious. I had thought this was a friendly invitation to hang out and grab some food in a part of the city I normally didn't get to. I hadn't realized it was a date. When it finally hit me, I was mortified! I messaged him to clarify, and when he told me it was meant as a date, I SAID NO!!! I turned him down! We still met for dinner as just friends, and to his credit - Nathan didn't treat me any differently despite his slightly bruised ego. But our story didn't stop there...

Yet ANOTHER few months down the road, still friends hanging out with our group, we had a "Friendsmas" coming up and were struggling on what to get for a couple of our friends in the group. So we thought of some funny ideas and Nathan suggested a trip to McKay's, a local resale shop, was in order. I had never been there before, and he said he would take me. Over the previous months, I had really begun to like him and was kicking myself for turning him down earlier on. I'd been trying to send some signals to him, so I thought he was asking me out again - FINALLY!! So I said yes, and off we went. A few weeks later, just after Christmas, Brianna messaged me saying Nathan had come to her for advice about asking me out again. After our talk, she gave him the green light, and we were officially a couple not long after.

Nathan lied. Yes he lied. He told me that his mom really wanted to use her nail salon gift certificate from Christmas to get her nails done on New Years. She didn't. He just wanted my nails done for a few days later. He lied again. He told me one night he was having a quiet night at home watching a documentary on Netflix. He wasn't. He went over to my parents and talked to them about having their blessing to ask me to marry him. And again! He orchestrated a game night at his new condo for our friend group that was purely an excuse to get everyone over at his place to help set up and take photos of the proposal. More lies. He told me everyone was getting there at 7. They were showing up earlier at 6:30 to beat me there. So when I showed up that night and knocked on the door, it was opened to reveal rose petals scattered all over the floor, votive candles on all the tables and the mantel, and Nathan down on one knee. I froze in the doorway and he had to get up to pull me into the house so that they could shut the door. He made a sweet speech before asking me to marry him and I barely had the voice to croak out "Yeeeh..." No S. I nodded furiously, and he slid the ring on my finger. Hallelujah!!!