We’re finally getting married!!

Eli and I have been together since we were freshman in college and we’ve known we would marry each other since roughly our junior year of college. We also always talked about how we would wait to get engaged until Eli had graduated from Western and was settled into a job. So one fine Saturday, Eli asks if I would like to go Odd Side Ale’s in Grand Haven and grab some dinner. After we finish dinner, we decide to get some ice cream and walk down the new pier since neither of us have seen it. We get all the down to the end, watch the water roll over the edge and Eli suggests we sit for a few minutes and watch the boats go by. We bunker down on the second level of the pier and I catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye that looks a lot like Eli’s aunt. I mention it to Eli and he says to me “you know my aunt Colleen would say hi to us if it was her.” Fair enough, I definitely know that to be true. Eli grabs my hand and starts talking about how he and I have been such great friends all theses years. FRIENDS?! We have been together for 5 years and he is using the word friends? I can feel myself start to go into panic mode, I’m pulling my hand away from Eli, I keep telling him to stop and I’m very sweaty. I was certain he was trying to break up with me, he hadn’t graduated yet - we were definitely NOT in the timeframe we talked about for an engagment. Then suddenly Eli is down on one knee in front of me, holding out a beautiful ring and asking me to marry him. Here is where things get foggy because I was sobbing and Eli was so nervous he just doesn’t remember, but we think I said yes! And low and behold, the Aunt Colleen doppelgänger was actually her, there to document every ugly tear I shed.