Our Story Part Three: The Ring

Just in case you need to catch up :)

Part One

Part Two

In January of 2012, I officially moved in with Will. We'd been dating for about four months, and everyone I knew thought I was completely insane. I'd never lived with a boyfriend before, but somehow, I knew it wouldn't be as big of a deal as everyone made it out to be. And it wasn't. Just as all things we'd done together leading up to that point had felt right, the move in did too.

I kind of just knew marriage was the next step. When we went to adopt Holly and still had seperate addresses, the woman asked "So, how long do you all plan on being together?". Something about needing to be sure the dog wasn't going to get returned to the shelter if we broke up. When he responded "Until one of us dies", that was a pretty good clue as well.

We'd talked about "when we got married" or "at our wedding", but never anything serious or planned. I'd known since freshman year of college that I wanted a Tacori engagement ring. My roommate and I had pages pulled out from magazines taped all over our walls, and the one right next to my bed, was a Tacori ad. Will knew this, and we went as far as getting my hand sized, but still, I didn't expect anything. I'd never had a "real" ring before, so the sizing thing had to go down at some point. I suspected it may mean the ring was coming, but was far from being certain.

March of 2012 we took a trip to Key West to meet his parents for a week of paradise. I've been to Florida plenty of times, but Key West is a totally different animal. The water was beautiful, we went to amazing restaurants, our beach house had the cutest little pool, and spending time with Will's parents always makes us both happy.

 

The whole trip I kept thinking "This is the perfect place to propose". I even hinted at it a few times, but Will gave up nothing. We flew back to Ohio still just a dating, living in sin, couple.

A few weeks went by and I started to wonder if I'd been off base suspecting an engagement. Maybe it wasn't coming soon after all? This in no way made me question or doubt the validity of my relationship, but it did make me wonder if maybe we weren't as 100% in sync as I thought? In the back of my mind I knew Will probably had something up his sleeve. That our engagement would happen exactly when it needed to. And it did :)

March 31st. Just shy of seven months after meeting, it happened. As much as I like to be social, if I have any free time whatsoever, you can usually find me on the couch, catching up on TV. Will is the same way. I came home on a random day, to find Will hanging out on the couch. I sat down and started complaining about being tired, and probably hungry.

"I have a surprise for you that may cheer you up" he says. My first thought was "THIS IS IT". But I'd just got home from work. He was on the couch in sweats. Decoy? Maybe.

I ran to the spot in his closet he told me to look for my surprise in, and low and behold- it was a board game. Not just any board game. Cincinn-opoly. A board game I had been coveting forever. Will and I both love pretty much all things Cincinnati, and I enjoy Monopoly a little more than any grown woman should, so it was right up my (our) alley.

I ran downstairs, forgetting my thoughts about the ring, ready to play. As I set up the game, it dawned on me, "MAYBE THE RING IS IN THE BAG WITH THE PIECES." I realized it wasn't, plus the box had still been sealed with saran wrap, so it wasn't really possible. I got over that pretty quickly and kept setting up the game.

As I finished Will asked me if I was missing any pieces. I don't remember our exact exchange word for word, but I could tell he was trying to get me to look around the box. I didn't see anything, and was starting to get a little confused as to what exactly what was happening. I'd checked everywhere- there was no ring. What was he getting at?

Then I saw it. Blending in with the white money tray was a white leather ring box.

I opened the box, and there it was. Sadly, we didn't get many pictures, but those moments will be forever engrained in my memory. We celebrated the rest of the night by calling our parents and playing Monopoly :) Will had planned the date perfectly. The next morning we had plans to meet my Mom in Indianapolis (half way from Cinci to Chicago) to pick up my sisters so they could visit for the week. Mom was the first one who got to see my ring, and my sisters were around for the first week of wedding planning.

It was the perfect proposal from my best friend :)