We're Getting Married!

We met during the first semester of our sophomore year at Purdue in Calculus of all places. It took Colin until October to work up the courage to talk to Lauren (he had been eyeing her all semester but didn't want to say something stupid and ruin his chances). He finally hatched the perfect plan...of throwing out a stupid line about an old childhood video game at the bus stop after class. Not the greatest plan, but it was just quirky enough that it worked. They exchanged numbers and went on a date three days later at the Chipotle on campus. We talked about everything under the sun for three hours until we closed down the restaurant and the rest was history!

Lauren took me to Daniel's Park the very first time I visited her and her family in college. It's a picturesque spot with a 360 degree view of Colorado and her absolute favorite place on Earth. It was early on, but I knew if I proposed to this girl one day, it was going to be there. Fast forward to September 2018, her whole family had given me her hand in marriage and swore themselves to secrecy (mission #1 accomplished), my parents had booked their tickets (to Lauren it was just a normal visit, mission #2 accomplished), and the ring was perfectly hidden away. The plan was to propose at Daniel's Park and follow that with a surprise family dinner at Shanahan's Steakhouse. In order to pull that off, Lauren couldn't know anything (she always said she would be able to see it coming and her intuition never disappoints). Mission #3 was to get her to Daniel's Park in Shanahan's attire without her being suspicious. She played right into my hands the day before mentioning that we should take my parents to Daniel's Park as they haven't seen it yet. My parents capped that off sharing they "wanted to take us to Shanahan's to celebrate our new jobs at Lockheed Martin," which Lauren totally bought. Everything and everyone was in place and ready to go. We arrived at Daniel's Park at which point my mom conveniently couldn't find her sunglasses and told Lauren and I to go ahead of her and my dad. We were overlooking our regular spot as I waited for people to clear. I got down on one knee (I honestly can't remember what I said), and received a beaming "yes!" shortly after mixed with tears of shock and joy. I turned around and pointed out her uncle taking pictures in the middle of the birthday party he was hiding in that was simultaneously cheering us on. Our families (including her little brother who had just flown in), quickly rushed in to complete the surprise. She had no idea it was coming, everything went off without a hitch (our families deserve Oscars), and we were engaged!!