The Proposal and The Bling

In between being a work-obsessed business owner, 

a relentless sales girl, a bridesmaid in a girlfriend's wedding 

and, ahem, a newly-engaged bride-to-be myself.. 

a blogger is one thing I have not been lately! 

Oops! 

Bare with me gals. 

So before I share our Punta Cana trip with yall I wanted 

to share the story of how Bryan proposed AND of course the pretty

little thing that he slipped on my finger, which in itself should be it's own

post buuuuuut let's not get carried away! 

Day One

Let's start with THIS POST

which in case you missed it, basically explains 

how EXCITED I was for a particular purchase... my Canon

and WHY I purchased it.... for our Punta Cana trip. 

So I buy this fabulous little camera to snap all of our vacation shots

and naturally in Corin-bad-luck-fashion, it broke as soon as we checked into our room.

No joke, people. 

We checked in.

They handed us "welcome cocktails." 

I thought, cuuuuute! Photo Opp!

Handed it to the guy behind the counter to take a pic and boom.

Not working. 

[This fun little piece of information comes into play again in the story] 

We didn't land until 8:30 so after spending most 

of the first night traveling and trying to play Geek Squad with my camera, 

jet-lagged not to mention, I gave up and we went to bed.

Day Two

Hoping the camera was back to functioning again? 

That was my thought process too. Not so much. 

We DID however spend the entire second day on the beach and 

in the pool, ok, at the swim up bar. 

We met a ton of other young couples and just had a suuuuper

relaxing day. We headed back to our room around 5:00 and at this point

Bryan is starting to rush me.

How long is it going to take you to get ready?

Can you hurry up?

There's people down on the beach- I want to go take sunset pictures!

Sunset pictures? Seriously?

Who is this guy, right? 

Had it not been for the special little pink cocktail,

compliments of my favorite pool bartender, 

I probably would have thought something was up right there.

But no. 

So we practically RUN down to the beach as the sun is setting-

in new wedges that had yet to be broken in, mind you, 

to find that there is no one around us to take pictures. 

This is where the Canon was suppose to come into play.

Bryan had been playing with my settings the week prior and

must have found out how to take a ton of snapshots on the self-timer.

His plan was to set up the camera and then have it take several pictures of us

but thaaattt plan kind of went out the window now didn't it?

So Plan B was apparently flagging down this poor family- 

Mom, Dad and horrified little boy- 

who were totally unknowing of what Bryan was about to do. 

They were SO sweet! 

I was even offering to take pictures of them after because

the Mom was being such a good sport. 

So she first snaps this picture and decides that she wants

to take more because the setting was so perfect:

Now she doesn't like the tree in the background and wants us to move:

Now she says that she wants more of the water in the background:

(I'm telling you- Bryan chose likely the pickiest person at the resort that

just so happened to be walking by)

So we move, at which point Bryan says, "Hang on

I actually have something for you."

NOW I'm freaking out. 

Seriously, what else could it have been?

If he pulled out any other piece of jewelry I would

have felt like an absolute idiot, let's be real.

And thennnnn- BAM.

Down on one knee.

The family is freaking out.

I'm freaking out. 

It probably felt like he was down there for centuries.
I'm not even positive I said "Yes!"
Bryan later confirmed that I did but I honestly was
so emotional that I couldn't even tell you what I said.

1. I couldn't believe that he just proposed.
We had been dating for 7 1/2 years yall.
I had pretty much given up on ever getting married
and just started to refer to us as life partners. That probably did the trick.
2. I couldn't believe he had someone there to capture everything!
Some people might say that its not as personal with someone there taking
pictures but I would have to disagree.
Bryan said the husband and wife both started yelling, "Is this real??
Is this real??!" and I don't remember hearing any of that.
It was so surreal to see him down on one knee after 7 1/2
years that I had pretty much blocked everything out.
I couldn't explain the feeling if I tried BUT I do have about
20 pictures that were snapped by a sweet Miami family to reenact the
moment for the rest of my life and I absolute LOVE that!

Half of the emotional shock that you clearly see
all over my face was due to what he pulled out of his pocket.
We had looked at rings a few times and I thought I found the most
perfect ring but it was so totally out of our price range.
We left the jewelry store with an understanding of what
I would like but I never in a million years expected to receive that ring.

After processing the fact that Bryan was down on
one knee, proposing, I glanced at the ring and pretty much lost it.
It was the exact ring that I had been obsessing over and dreaming that
I MIGHT someday have.

Please also note my stellar photog skills. 

I would have to say that I have one of the world's ugliest left hands
but I don't really mind it so much anymore!
The boy did pretty good.

Anyway that's enough sappy, love talk-
the full Punta Cana recap coming soon!