THE STORY OF...the proposal

Jeff really wanted the proposal to be a surprise but I am hard to surprise and I knew the proposal was coming. Because of that Jeff picked the day after Christmas because he knew that when I realized he wasn't proposing on Christmas Day that it had to be on 12/27 when he made "dinner reservations" at a nice restaurant. The day after Christmas we had plans to go decorate a tile for charity for the Historical Society of Dana Point. Since it was the day after a holiday, I was tired and didn't feel like getting ready to go out. Jeff must had been stressing out about my lack of effort when I was getting ready...but he didn't act anxious at all! I finally managed to get myself ready and we drove from my house to Fired Up in San Clemente. When we got there we were greeted by the owner and I was told to pick out a table we wanted to use to paint our tile and Jeff would handle the paper work. When they both returned to our table I was asked if we wanted to see an example of a tile that someone else had decorated. When she placed the tile in front of me I realized it said "Amanda will you marry me? Love, Jeff" Once I realized what was going on the tears came and I said yes after Jeff said many nice things to me that I barely remember. Jeff had given the store owner my camera to get pictures of the whole thing. It was the most perfect proposal and he totally surprised me! Here are the pictures!

Even from the side you can see the shock on my face! And the look of "Haha - I gotcha" on his!



Now I know why girls always have their hands over their mouths. I didn't even realize I was doing it!



Cue the "ugly cry face" as my new best friend is slipped on.



Newly engaged and showing off our very special tile.



Outside the very cute store it all happened in.



This is the picture I took with my cell phone that I sent to all my friends to share the good news. I tried calling a few people it just got overwhelming so I used technology to make it a bit easier.



Were you surprised by your proposal or did you know it was happening?

THE STORY OF…how we met

I guess I broke the rules by finding him in a bar but I choose to believe we are the exception to this rule. Luckily I had an intoxicated sister and a helpful brother-in-law with me because I was the sober driver that night. When I say sober I mean sober – I was drinking coffee…in a bar. I saw him walk in with friends and he immediately stood out. I was entertaining myself most of the night people watching but something made me follow him around the bar with my eyes while we were sitting at a table in the corner. After a few distractions I lost track of him only to discover he was sitting with a large group of people at the table next to us. Fate you ask? I say YES! The group I was with started to dwindle as people left to go home. But something told me I had to give this guy my number or I would look for him every time I came back to this particular area. BUT I was stone.cold.sober. There was no way I had the guts to give him my number when I had never done something like that before…plus he had walked in with some girls. I didn’t want to be the girl that hit on a guy with his girlfriend sitting there. So – my BIL offered to find out if he was single. Needless to say this got him some weird looks and the attention of most of the people at the table. We finally convinced my drunk sister to talk to him for me. After what had to be a funny conversation with my sister, he had my number and a very quick glimpse of my face when we left. I was pretty much convinced I had screwed up and he would never call me. Luckily I was wrong. He called me the following Thursday – out of pure luck one of his other friends had been given a girls phone number and they said…”If you call yours, I’ll call mine” - and we had plans for a group outing the following day. The rest – as they say – is history. We have been together ever since! Now, over two years later we are planning the wedding of our dreams. Well – maybe my dreams. Not sure how much he actually dreams of weddings!

Did you meet your significant other in an unconventional way?