#ReevesEst2024

Her Side: “A few months after starting my career in construction, a guy started working on our crew that my attention continually was drawn to during meetings, despite his thousand yard stare and resting a**hole face. Once we actually started working together, we would talk during downtime like we had known each other for years, there was no judgement, awkwardness or hesitation in our conversations. After a few days of actually working together (April 22, 2022 to be exact), he was playing music in his blade, I had recognized the song but wasn’t sure because he had turned it down to where I could barely hear it. I went up and asked him if it was what song I thought it was and sure enough, it was. From then until September 2022, we built a connection and, most importantly, a friendship that could never be replaced.” His Side: “Lainey and I met at work. At the beginning we only saw each other in the morning meetings. She kind of seemed a little stuck up. Well, that opinion changed when we finally worked together. We had been working together for 2-3 days and had downtime and would talk. Then one day, I was listening to an inappropriate song in the blade and out of respect for her, I turned it down as she walked up and she said “is that Wheeler Walker Jr?” I was taken by surprise that she knew who it was and the rest is history.”

Her Side: “As we were preparing for our trip to Indiana (Ryan’s first time going and first time meeting some people in person, such as my dad, Grace and Cevin), I noticed that he had been acting weird. I’d overthink it then just brush it off. We spent the first couple of days getting to spend some time with family. On Friday, Ryan, my mom and myself drove to Grace & Cevin’s to meet up with them and some friends. All of us, including my mom and aunt, went out to dinner. After we were all finished, everyone started going outside but Grace asked me to go to the bathroom with her - I thought okay, odd, we haven’t done the whole buddy system and bathroom selfies since middle school but we also never get to see other, so I went along with it. As we were walking outside, everyone was standing over by the fountain. Grace started taking a video, occasionally pointing the camera at me, the string lights, etc. (also odd but it’s Grace, she does document everything through the camera lens). Once we got to the fountain, mom started asking for pictures of everyone by the fountain and told me and Ryan to go up first (as usual, I’m annoyed about pictures but I’m used to moms 1,000 photos for any little occasion). As mom, and others, started taking pictures I got overly excited to point out a lightening bug to Ryan (he’s never seen one in person). While doing so, Ryan said “why don’t you look at this” and when I turned back around, he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand. **HOLY CRAP!** As he asked me to marry him, we were both instantly overcome with tears. I said YES! I’m so thankful and excited to be getting to marry and spent the rest of my life with my best friend.” His Side “When I decided to propose, I wanted to do it on our first trip to Indiana together. But I needed help, so I reached out to Grace to help me plan and completely surprise Lainey. With that figured out, next step was to figure out how I was going to hide the ring while traveling across the country. Lainey had already packed our bags, so I had to sneak the ring into the bag while she was showering. Only place I could think of was in a pair of my socks. Fast forward a few days, we were about to head to Cevin and Grace’s house but before we left Lainey’s parents house, I asked her dad for his blessing (with the ring in my bibs because later that day was the big moment). Fast forward again, we are getting ready to go out to dinner and I had to get the ring out of my bibs and somehow hide it in my shirt. But it was too noticeable, so I gave it to Cevin to hold on to until after dinner. While at dinner, while Lainey was sitting next to me, Cevin passed me the ring under the table. With dinner done, Grace took Lainey and went to the bathroom, so the rest of us could get outside. We were standing by the fountain, Lainey and Grace walked up. Stacy wanted to take pictures, so I used that as the perfect moment to propose (the actual proposal was not planned at all). While we were getting ready to take the picture, a firefly lit up behind the camera. There was the moment, Lainey said “look a lightening bug” and I said “hey look at this” as I pulled the ring out of my pocket and got down on one knee. Everything I had planned to say disappeared and through the tears, all I could get out was “will you marry me?” After the emotions subsided, we went out to celebrate with friends and family that helped me make the proposal happen.