Happy Proposiversary!

Two years ago today, a recently poverty stricken, very shaky Brandon got down on one knee and asked a question to which he already knew the answer. I thought it would be appropriate to pay tribute to the cute, creative way he prefaced said question. No offense to those who love roses and dinners overlooking temples, but he knew I wanted something different, something uniquely us...Having talked about marriage, discussed the customary conversation he had with my dad and picked out a ring, I guess you could say that I suspected something along the lines of a marriage proposal was coming. I began to turn every date we went on into a potential proposal. This includes April 13, 2006 when he invited me to accompany him to a Speech Showcase he had to attend for a class. Sure it's a speech showcase, thought I, the whole time picturing the perfect proposal. Alas, it was indeed just a speech showcase...a two hour speech showcase. I was not impressed.

He picked me up from school the next day, and I must confess to being slightly grumpy. He asked if I would drive and said he had a game for us to play. This is just mean, I thought. So I obliged and he explained that he had a puzzle for me to assemble and that for me to obtain a piece of said puzzle, I had to correctly answer a question related to our dating career and drive us to the spot associated with the event. We went to the place where we first met, where we went on our first date, where we first kissed (despite popular opinion, we have), etc. So at each of these pitstops , I was given a piece of a puzzle that had the event, date and place written on the back. Regrettably I must inform you that I did get one wrong...but in my defense the question was rather ambiguous, so he found it in his heart to forgive me and press on. When I had collected "all" of the pieces (after almost a year of milestones, it was quite a lengthy game), he drove us to a cute little park in Orem to put it together. (Still clueless, by the way. He'd been quite clever and creative throughout our courtship, so I thought this was just another way to throw me off the scent of a diamond ring.) So I assembled the puzzle, only to find that the bottom corner was missing. He let me sweat a little bit, thinking that I had dropped it somewhere, and he finally pulled out the last piece and the puzzle looked like this:

On the last piece was written: Brandon and Michelle get engaged, Nielsen's Grove, April 14th 2006. I tried to cry, as I thought this would be the appropriate time, but could not produce the tears. Then he said a bunch of mushy stuff that neither of us can recall, but it finished with "Will you marry me?" I thought 'Well, duh!' but said 'Yes!' It's a story I love to tell, and he knew that's what I wanted...isn't he great? I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't, why are you still reading?

I thought I'd wrap it up with some of our engagement pictures , taken by the dynamic duo of Brad & Caroline Clark of Still Light Photography. They come highly recommended! They're good friends of ours, so knew we weren't lovey dovey and let us just goof around for most of the session.But just in case you're thinking we're total weirdos and can't take a decent picture, these are the ones we sent to family and friends so they knew the wedding wasn't a joke: