Our Love Part VI, wherein he asks and she says yes

Last week was the anniversary of the first time we kissed. To commemorate the occasion, I wrote a really really long story about us being in love. This is the final installment. If you'd like to read the others, keep scrolling, love.

The Friday after I told him I was ready, we were at a little guitar concert of my friend Steve in the lobby of the Widstoe building, and Chris leaned over and said, “Hey, let’s go on a favorites date tomorrow.” We had been talking about doing a favorites date (where we do our favorite things) for a long time so I wasn’t suspicious at all. Like, really, at all. He hadn’t talked to my parents, for crying out loud. Saturday was shaping up to be a great day. We had a favorites date in the early afternoon, and for dinner we were planning to go to Café Madrid in Salt Lake (because my cousin Grant is awesome and had a gift card that expired that day and gave it to us), and after dinner we had the semi-annual Black and White Party to attend at Rob and Allie’s house.

So I got up Saturday morning and scrubbed my kitchen floor. We had cleaning checks, and I got down on my hands and knees for that stupid linoleum. My hands smelled like bleach all day long. After I cleaned, Chris came and got me for our favorites date. We had planned to go to the mountains, because they are my favorite, and eat avocado sandwiches, because they’re his favorite, and then Chris suggested we both bring a surprise favorite thing.

He picked me up, and we ran to Orem to go to my little brother’s football game. While we were there we realized it was incredibly cold that day, and also threatening to snow, so we went to my parents’ house and I got some warm clothes. My outfit was awesome. I was wearing an Old Navy fleece tech vest from 8th grade, my American Eagle coat from high school, and an ugly grey beanie that probably belongs to one of my brothers.

We drove up Hobble Creek canyon and went to a little park. We sat in the pavilion and ate the avocado sandwiches. Then we read an Olivia book, that was my surprise thing. Then Chris took out his backpack and pulled out a Campus Mail envelope. I recognized it, I had sent him a note at his job in the library from my job in the Testing Center in it, back before we even started dating. But then he opened it up. Inside was every note I had written him, all the postcards I sent that summer, a few pictures, all the ticket stubs and programs from things we went to together—EVERYTHING from the entire 14-ish months we’d been dating. I had no idea he had any of it. It made me want to cry, it was so cute. (It also made my Olivia book seem super lame.) He told me I was his favorite thing, and we looked through all the stuff together and reminisced. When it was all done, I was like, "You are so cute. Well, let's go home and get showered and ready for the rest of the day!"

Then he said, “There’s one more thing.” And I started to freak out a little. He led me out of the pavilion, into a more romantic spot, with leaves on the ground. It was raining a little bit. He gave me a big hug and told me how much he loved me. He told me we had just looked at all those memories and he hoped we would have a lot more. Then he got down on one knee, and I really started to freak out. He pulled out my ring and asked me to marry him.

I will be honest, at that moment, I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted. I started to think, “I can say yes, and then later if I want to call it off, I can, right?” Then I looked at him and said, “Yes,” and I was ok. That was it. It was so overwhelmingly comforting. I truly received my answer right then and there. I had had months of agony over this, but the very SECOND I truly decided to commit, I felt great about it. I will never forget how right it felt. And from that moment on, I didn’t worry. I think some people have moments while they’re engaged of, “OhmygoshwhatamIdoing?” and I never really had that, because I had spent so long feeling like that before we actually GOT engaged.

After I said yes, he took off his big gray gloves that I was wearing and put my ring on my frozen fingers. We laughed because we really could smell the bleach on them. I was doing this crazed sort of crying laughter for most of this part. We hugged, and we kissed, and then we jumped up and down and said, “We’re getting married! We’re getting married!” (Oh, and wouldn't you believe it? We turned on the camera to take some pics--dead batteries. Dang that stupid camera.)

Then it was time for the phone calls. I called my house and asked if everyone was home. Zach was like, “yeah . . . why?” I told him I was coming over to get something and just wanted to see everyone. I called a bunch of my friends and said, “Hey, you should meet me over at my parents’ house. Just do it.” My friends knew what was up, but the fam had no idea.

WELL—they had some idea, because that night that Chris told me he was too much of a weenie to talk to my dad, he actually had. They were moving the furniture, then my dad, mom, and Chris just sort of ended up sitting in the living room talking. So Chris said, “Well, since you’re both here . . . “ and my mom started crying immediately, and they chatted and whatevs. But anyway, we got to my house, and Allie had beat us there. So she cooked up a story about borrowing my mom’s punch bowl for the black and white party, which we really did need to do. My mom actually called me and I acted like it was all a big misunderstanding--"Oh, Allie came to get it? Oh, I told her I was going to come get it, oh well, we're almost there, we'll see you in a minute."

On the drive to my parents’ house, we passed Goldsmith Jewelers on University Avenue, and Kiley’s car was parked there, which seemed awfully curious. But it all made sense 2 days later when she and Tyler got engaged. It was SO fun to be engaged together! Thanks Tyler and Chris!

When we arrived at the Tanner home, I walked into the kitchen, where my mom was, and took a seat at the counter. Then I flung out my hand and let her see it. Nobody actually said any words, there was just lots of screaming and laughing and I kept doing that crying/laughing thing.

We had our fancy dinner at Cafe Madrid, and it was so fun to tell our waiter that we had gotten engaged that day. I couldn't stop looking at my ring, it was so sparkly!

Eating Spanish food.

That night at the Black and White party we got to announce it to all of our friends, and it was so, so fun. It was such an exciting, fun day, and I loved it all.

Don't be jealous of the hat. Or the ring.

Chris isn't very good at the foot pop.

Shelly hadn't left for Peru yet, TW is pregnant, Ann didn't answer my call that day so she found out about engagement at the party, I'm wearing a hat, Kiley was secretly about to get engaged too, Allie was our host.

One of the fun things about getting engaged the way we did (that is, me being super surprised) was that we had no idea when we were getting married. People would say, “So when is it?” And we’d say, “We don’t even know! Probably January!”

And indeed, we did end up getting married in January. Don’t ever say you will NEVER do something, because guess what? Maybe your boyfriend will propose to you in October, and waiting until April just doesn’t sound so great. So you will get married in the winter after all. It was freezing, but it was amazing, and it was the end of the beginning.

And also the end of this series on the blog. But our love will go on and on.

Tune in next time to read about the usual stuff I talk about, like Fall . . . . .