She Said Yes - Shaq and Lauren's memory of a Lifetime
I always knew that I would propose on my graduation date but when COVID came, it kind of stifled my excitement for the day as my graduation was now set to be virtual. Though unfortunate, this worked PERFECTLY according to my plan. Lauren, being the “celebratory” type, insisted that we still have a party complete with all of my friends and family in celebration of my graduation. I agreed, but only because I knew between her focus on medical school and planning this party for me, I would now have the perfect distraction for her. She had planned the party for Saturday and I was okay with that because the whole time I had planned to propose to her on that Friday night. So a couple days before, I told her to come into town early, on Friday, because I just wanted to relax and go to a nice dinner with her and I, before family got into town the next day. I even let her think she was picking the restaurant! She made reservations for us and everything. Then day of, I told her I found some place better that I wanted to go to, that place being Fahrenheit in Charlotte, NC. So once we got to the restaurant I asked for a reservation for Lauren (which was for two people) because the reservation I had under my name, would have told her that there were a lot more people at the restaurant. We went and sat down and I asked her if she wanted to go and see the rooftop view on the balcony. We went outside to see the view and she was skeptical because at that point, she thought something was going on, but there was nothing when we went outside. After returning to the table, I asked her if she wanted to go back outside because I forgot to show her something. When she came outside for the second time, all of her friends and family were there, and by that time, she realized what was going on. After all of strategic planning that went into this day, there was only one thing left to do, and that was to drop down on one knee and ask the woman of my dreams to marry me.