Last year, we decided we wanted to plan a trip to Iceland. We had been dating for just over 3 years and I knew that this trip was my chance to surprise my (then) girlfriend with a once in a lifetime proposal. This would be Emma’s first time out of the country and my first time out of the country, outside of my time in the military, so we were starting from scratch. Passports, flights, itinerary, the camper van we would live in, there was quite a bit involved with planning this trip. While planning all those things, I was secretly planning our proposal. I got the ring, I coordinated the location with the itinerary we would be following, but the hardest part was finding a photographer. I came across a company called Flytographer that set me up with a local photographer in Iceland named Ernir. Once we got closer to the trip, Ernir worked with me to determine the specifics of the big event, where to stand, what time time to meet, even a “code phrase” for me to use when I was about to pop the question so he knew to be ready.  My plan was to make all this happen the second day we were there. We were planning on living in a camper van for 8 days so I wanted to have pictures before.  Fast forward, we’re in Iceland. We have flown through the night, the first day we get our camper van and immediately start driving to go snow mobileing, then drive back the way we came to our first campsite (the proposal spot was ten minutes from the campsite). All in all about an 11 hour venture that day, we’ve basically been awake for 48 hours, running on excitement. In the back of my mind all I’m thinking about is the next morning, getting there on time, and rehearsing what I’m going to say! As we pull into that first campsite the check engine light, traction control light, essentially the whole dash lights up. We pull in and try the obvious things (like turn the van off, turn it back on) and nothing helps. We both think the van has just broken down, 5 hours away from where we rented. My first thought is, I have to somehow play this off and still get to our photo shoot at 7 am the next morning. Like I said previously, we’re exhausted. We make our pull-out bed in the back of the van and pass out around 7 pm.   The next morning we wake up to my alarm. I’m up and packing our stuff up from our camp and getting dressed… she’s not budging. I am never the kind of person to rush her to do anything, we run on her schedule, and I am completely fine with that. This particular morning, I’m trying to toe the line of not being too obvious and rush her too much, but also encourage her to put a pep in her step. Also, the van is still “broken down” in our minds. I keep telling her “we’re right here, we need to go see this waterfall, it’s only ten minutes from here.” Obviously that’s not the priority this morning and she can’t figure out why I’m acting so ridiculous about seeing this waterfall. It comes to 6:30am, then 6:45am, and now we’re going to be late. I check my email, trying to be discrete, although I’ve probably never “checked my email” at all in the last 4 years of our relationship. The photographer has emailed a couple times letting me know he’s ready for us. I let him know we are going to be late and luckily he was very understanding. Around 7:30am we finally get to where we’re supposed to be, Kvernufoss waterfall. I see the photographer, he sees us. I get us up to the spot we discussed previously, I say the “code phrase” which is “let’s take a selfie”. I put my phone back in my pocket and grab the ring box and ask her to marry me. She says yes! We spent the rest of the day driving around the southern coast of Iceland which is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. It was a chaotic start, but the rest of the day was absolutely magical. Without a doubt the best day of my life. For the record, the van rental company told us “it’s probably fine, just keep driving.” We did, and we never had any problems the rest of the trip.