We are Getting Married!

Only a few months into dating, we both knew we wanted to marry each other sooner rather than later, and he openly communicated that he would ask me officially after the summer of 2019. As you can imagine, after summer, I was reading into everything, waiting for the moment he would get down on his knee, look me in the eye and ask me to marry him. Things continued on as usual though, then he would ask me out on a more special date here and there and my hopes would rise and fall. Months went by. Once we reached the end of fall I was discouraged. We were almost to the end of the year and nothing had happened. He still promised me that he had a plan, and to not let down all hope, so I continued to pray from contentment. In the first week of December, he sent me a text telling me to save the date for a coming weekend that month. I responded "ok" but in my mind, I knew that was the day. It was during his Christmas break, and it was a weekend... I always have weekends off, and he knew I didn't have plans. The week passed by slowly. Then our annual Christmas party. Naturally, I was helping clean the house and when I went to put something away in Marco's room I found a paper on his nightstand that I picked up to throw away. Before throwing it away I checked just to make sure it wasn't important. It was only the receipt for a golden ring. Later that night at the party I told Rach (my Matron of Honor) how I knew when he was going to propose and that I found the receipt. Evidently, since her husband also happens to be one of Marco's closest friends (Matthan, his Best Man) when she leaked the word to him, he had to tell Marco. After being told how he "messed up" in giving it away, Marco determined he had to fix the ruined surprise.

We had planned to go ice skating at Christmas in the Park in San Jose the Tuesday before the "special date" he planned that weekend. I was living in the moment thinking this is the last date before we are engaged! We got our skates, got on the rink, and chased each other around for a good while. Then a lady came over the loudspeaker and said, "The rink will be closing in 3 minutes, please bring your skates to the front and enjoy your last round." Everyone still on the ice began to make their way to the edge. Marco turned and said to me, "Well, wanna go one more time?" I said "Sure!" So he grabbed my hand and we, leaning into each other slowly skated in a circle to the center of the ice. We stopped in the middle, he turned to me gave a hug and asked, "You enjoy your time?" I said "Mhm" with a big smile, and asked him the same question in return. He nodded his head with a smile on his face and gave me another squeeze as he said, "I always enjoy my time with you." When he let up, he looked down lovingly into my eyes and said, "And I always want to go the last round with you." I smiled up at him. He stepped back. His hand nervously reached into his coat pocket. I froze. It was a little pouch with a gold button. I looked at it and back at him. He lowered himself to the ice, set down one knee, and revealed a beautiful gold ring with tiny diamonds all around. Looking me in the eyes, with a serious weight in his voice he whispered: "Will you marry me?". In total surprise, I responded "Oh my gosh!" I laughed and bent down to hug him. He held me as he stood up, then took my hand and slid the perfectly beautiful rind down my finger. "Do you like it?" he asked, I realized I didn't even answer his first question. "Yes! Yes, I love it! It's beautiful" I said with excitement. Turns out, he was going to take me out for dinner that weekend and propose, but he had to surprise me, so last minute he grabbed the ring and the rest was improv.