Happy Engagiversary to my wonderfully amazing and handsome fiance! On this day two years ago my boyfriend of 6 years asked me to become the future Mrs. Chris Bower. He did it in his typical fashion of making sure to get me hot and mad before making me unbelievably happy while making sure it was special, spontaneous and that I looked my best. By the time it happened, our engagement had been something that Chris and I had been talking about for 4 1/2 years. We had had the perfect wedding set picked out for four of those years and in a single day on a cruise we picked a different one entirely.
My Dream Ring vs. The One We Had Previously Picked Out
When we finally had it paid off and in our possession, I was so excited. I wanted to put it on immediately and never take it off! But, Chris told me that if I put it on then that was it, we were engaged, and that he’d be off the hook. I was fine with buying it together and knowing when we got it, but I still wanted him to put in the effort and surprise me, and just to make it special. I wasn’t picky about how he should do it. It could be as simple as making us dinner at home and then getting down on one knee.
Chris and I had just made plans to start saving for a house about two weeks before we got it in the mail. We had decided that we couldn’t go to anymore decadent dinners with our friends, unless it was a special occasion, and then he decided that we should go to Juvia (a wonderfully upscale restaurant in South Beach with the best views of the city), and I knew something was up. It was exactly the restaurant we were trying to avoid with plans for our new endeavor.
Chris picked the date and kept forgetting that I had the day off. I broke my nail the night before and he suggested that I get it fixed during the day. With my heightened suspicions, I decided to get a polish change as well. Chris and I work at the same resort, which just so happens to be where I get my hair and nails done, and he always stops in to say hi when I’m there. That day was no different except that he changed what time I should be back to pick him up at at least three times in span of my hour appointment which only made me all the more suspicious.
When I got home, it didn’t stop either. I was under a deadline with school and needed to get a lot of reading done, especially if I planned to enjoy our evening and not be stressed about what I wasn’t getting done. He would push the time back and then make it earlier, with a new text coming in about every half hour. It continued even as I got ready. I finally told him just to text me when he was ready for me to leave. Of course when he did, I wasn’t ready quite yet, and he told me to take my time.
When I got to the resort, sitting outside his office, he kept me waiting another hour, giving me some line about the work they were doing running longer than expected. He told me we might not make our reservations and that we might have to go to Brio instead. I thought it was an intriguing idea. We passed it all the time and we had been wanting to try it. I looked it up and the first thing I saw advertised was take-out. Suddenly our romantic evening went from four-star Juvia in South Beach to take-out from Brio. Not quite what I had in mind.
When he came back to his office, he said we just had to wait a minute for one of his guys to finalize everything, but instead, the sprinklers had another idea and went off on their job site. Chris had to go. He had sweat right through his shirt and I offered to go home and get another. He didn’t know how long he’d be and hinted that it might be more than the hour that it’d take me to complete the errand. I told him to text me when he was done and then I’d come back. I didn’t want to just continue to sit in the car. During the past hour, I just kept thinking about how much reading I could have gotten done had I known I’d be waiting. I only drove about a mile away before he called me in a panic asking me where I was and if I could come back, so I turned around. He met me at his office with his golf cart and asked if I wanted to go for a ride and see what he had been working on.
I had been with him to other job sites in the past and I thought that was what we were doing. A sprinkler was spraying over the sidewalk and I teased Chris that he better not mess up my hair. The sun was going down and I saw one of the waterfalls lit up, but didn’t realize what was going on until we were on top of it. When it clicked I started crying and laughing at the same time. He had lit a pathway and covered it with flower petals leading up to the waterfall and had a bottle of champagne on ice in a bucket at the end with two glasses sitting on the ground below. He walked me up the path and finally did what I had been dreaming of for what seemed like forever. But he didn’t do it in the traditional way of asking of someone to become their wife. Instead he asked if I would become Mrs. Chris Bower, to which I joyously said yes.
I Said YES!
To see our engagement video, click here.
Our life together has been a rollercoaster that everyone we know doubted would last, but we have beat the odds every step of the way and I know that is what we will continue to do forever. Chris Bower, you are the love of my life.