The Engagement: Part 5

Look! I can count! Get the whole story by starting with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

“REALLY?” I ASKED HIM as he slipped the ring out of the box and placed it on my finger. “Really?” I pondered again. I must have asked twenty times but he answered me each time with a reassuring, “Yes really,” followed by a quick little laugh. I nuzzled my head into his neck again, completely and utterly happy.

I was engaged to the person I loved the most on this entire Earth, and somehow he loved me back. I had a ring on my finger that we’d picked out together, and it was a sparkling reminder that I am his.

We kissed again but got interrupted by our driver. “That building there used to be a barn,” she pointed to a tan building with red doors.

“Oh really? What is it now?” Kevin asked, not bothering to wait for her answer as he returned his lips to mine.

“A reception center,” she stated, completely oblivious to the life changing event that had just taken place in the back of her carriage.

“How appropriate!” Kevin crowed, and I elbowed him. For some reason I was shy – worse that I’d ever been in my entire life, and I couldn’t bear for him to tell her that we were engaged. It was too private. Too perfect to waste time being drilled with congratulations and questions. I just wanted a few more moments with my boyfrien— fiancé now.

fiancé.

What a beautiful word.

Our carriage ride went by fast from that point on, and I hardly paid attention to the ride back to the Temple. Kevin admitted some disappointment that we didn’t have my camera, but I meant what I said when I grabbed his face and told him, “no camera in the world could have captured how absolutely perfect tonight was.” And I stand by that. It’s not that I wouldn’t love a photo of us right after we got engaged, standing next to a carriage, me showing off my ring and looking shocked and shy, but it’s not about that. The memory, the story and snapshots in my mind are much better than anything you could print on paper, and that’s good enough for me.

We climbed out and he paid the driver, asking her the average number of engagements on carriage rides. I shushed him again and stuffed my left hand in my pocket. This moment was mine, and I was going to be selfish with it.

We moved back into the lobby of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and although I’d picked the ring a few months earlier, this was my first chance to really get a good look at the diamond he’d chose to put in it.

“JESUS! HOW BIG IS THAT—” I cut short, clamping my bedazzled hand over my mouth. You read that right. I took the lord’s son’s name in vain – in a very religious building, in the heart of the Mormon capitol of the world.

And then I laughed about it.

I looked at my ring again and felt something pulling at the back of my mind, some memory that I had to share. “Did I ever even tell you?” I wondered out loud.

“Tell me what?” He asked.

“That that was my very idea of a dream proposal?” He looked confused so I tried to find a way to explain it. “When I was little, that was what I imagined a perfect proposal to be. I used to dream about being taken on a carriage ride around Salt Lake City.”

“Are you serious?! Of course you didn’t tell me that, if you had it might have been easier! I had to just guess.”  Of course, I didn’t mention that my dream proposal had included a new book, a single rose and some light snowflakes, but I did mention the part that took me by surprise – not only had he given me my ideal proposal, he’d one-upped my fantasy and wrote me the sweetest letter.

And about the other stuff that I’d wanted? Well, he is a great guesser because two weeks prior he’d bought me a book that I’d wanted, and Sunday morning, as if that morning could get any better once I’d woken up and realized it wasn’t a dream, there really was a ring on my finger from the man that wanted to marry me…he showed up on my doorstep with a rose.

Boom.

That was my heart.

I made Kevin stand with me in my bathroom when we got home. I didn’t get a photo at the exact spot, but I was at least going to have some from the same night we got engaged.

He grabbed the camera and took some of my ring.

Pictures really don’t do it justice.

I’ll probably talk more about the ring shopping in other posts, but we can sum it up here and say that I knew this was the one.

Just like I knew he was the one.

I love you Kevin, with my entire heart, and I can’t wait to marry you. Thank you for being the most amazing, wonderful, and loving fiancé a girl could ask for.