15 Years Ago Today!

 

I can't believe that Dan and I got engaged 15 years (!!) ago today!  I love the story of our engagement (even though it was a very crazy day!) and I feel like I have told this story over and over again.  In fact, it may be one of my favorite stories to tell!

Dan and I had been dating for 2 years and 8 months and we had been living together for over a year, but we had never, ever talked about getting married.  We had planned a trip to St. Thomas & maybe two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, I was watching Bridezillas & Dan said, "So how is the guy supposed to know what kind of ring to buy?" I said, "They ask her best friend!"

I remember my friend Vanessa visited us shortly before our trip, and I told her that I thought Dan was thinking about proposing and she said, "Maybe he'll propose in St. Thomas!" and I said, "No, there's no way...he can't get a ring that fast."  

Our travel day, like always, was full of unexpected complications.  Our first flight was fine, but our second flight was delayed two hours.  When we finally boarded the (rather small) plane, Dan seemed really stressed when he was told that they had to take his carry on suitcase, rather than keeping it with him.  I just figured he was stressed because he had a laptop in the suitcase.  There was a PDA loving couple near us on the plane and at one point I (somewhat jokingly) said to Dan, "We should be more like that!" 

When we finally landed in St. Thomas, our luggage was missing.  We took a cab to our hotel, we checked into our room, and we decided to go explore the property.  We'd had such a long day, and Dan doesn't share my love of picture taking, so I said, "You know what?  I'm not going to bring my camera," and he said, "No, you should bring it."  So I did, not thinking anything of his comment.  The hotel property was stunning & when we started walking along the shore, Dan took my hand.  I thought, "He's holding my hand because of what I had said about that couple on the plane!"  

We stopped in a gorgeous spot, and he said, "Sara..." I cannot remember what he said after that, but I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, he's proposing without a ring!" because there was no way in my mind that he could have had a ring.  But then he got down on one knee, he took out a ring box, and asked me to marry him!  When he opened the box, I saw a beautiful ring, that looked exactly like what I had described to my friend, Chrissy (in the hopes that Dan would call her for advice!)  I was shocked and so happy!  I'm so glad that our phones worked because I called my mom and said, "We're engaged!" (sounding just like Monica on Friends when she and Chandler got engaged!)  I'm so thankful to the sweet couple who was on the beach at that time, who snapped the photo of me & Dan!

We walked over to the restaurant near the beach and after a while I said to Dan, "So how did you get a ring that fast?" and he goes, "Well..."  It turns out that Dan (not really knowing anything about rings) had called Chrissy & they met up at Tysons Corner to go ring shopping.  When asked, "When are you planning to propose?" Dan replied, "On Monday...out of the country."  Most of them laughed and said it was impossible to get a ring that fast.  But bless the sweet lady at Christian Bernard who agreed to loan Dan the sample ring to use to propose, and then I'd be able to exchange it for the actual ring when it was ready in a few weeks.  The side stones of the sample ring were all real, but the actual diamond was fake.  (I LOVE to tell people that Dan proposed to me with a fake diamond ring!)

Of course during our stay in St. Thomas, Dan said, "You know, you seem SO happy with this ring, so maybe we should just keep this one and then we could save thousands of dollars!"  I politely declined.  Once I got my "real" ring, it looked exactly like the sample, only with a more sparkly center stone!  Dan said he wanted to propose on our first night in St. Thomas so he wouldn't have to stress about keeping the ring hidden, but by the end of the trip he realized it would've been best to wait until the last day.  Because what did I want to talk about nonstop during our vacation?  Wedding planning!