“I want to taco ’bout how amazing you are. The s’more I know you, the s’more I love you. Words cannot espresso how much you mean to me. I love you a latte. Will you marry me?”

 

How We Met

Ryan and I met in August 2013 when we were both students at Kennesaw State University. It’s a good thing we met when we did, because the next year I was at UGA, and Ryan started taking all of his classes online. I had a class with Ryan’s cousin Sarah, which is how we met. Later I found out that he would hang out with us before class because he had a crush on me.

The first time Ryan and I went out, he took me to the North Georgia State Fair. I remember being scared to ride the gondola, so he conveniently put his arm around me to comfort me. Unfortunately, poor timing kept us from dating, but we stayed friends for the next couple years. Fast forward to July 2015 when we met up for mini golf and bbq after not seeing each other for a while, and the rest is history.

The Engagement

We got engaged during the solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017. A few months prior, I’d been picking up on hints but didn’t want to say anything. We had been talking about marriage, so maybe I was turning everything that happened into a possible clue. One day when I checked Find My Friends, Ryan was near a jewelry store; he mentioned going out of town sometime soon; he also casually made conversations about jewelry I liked. But my dad texting me that he and Ryan were going to dinner was a dead giveaway that something was up. After that, it was really hard to keep myself from telling Ryan my suspicions. I was just going to roll with it, and see what happened.

We postponed celebrating our July dating anniversary until after my graduation in August. Since we waited longer to celebrate, we decided to make the entire weekend a celebration, thus becoming our “engagement weekend.” It started with mini golf and Melting Pot for dessert on Friday, a 5K on Saturday, and camping with his family in Cloudland Canyon on Sunday. There was even a time when we were camping that I thought the engagement was about to happen. We were all on an overlook, and Ryan and I wanted to get a picture. So Ryan’s sister-in-law, Dawn, was trying to clear everyone out of the photo. Surprise, that wasn’t the proposal.

Sunday afternoon, Ryan and I headed to Chattanooga to spend time with some friends from school and get ready for the eclipse. The next morning (the big day), I was a little grumpy because we planned on leaving the hotel at 11am, but we decided at the last minute to leave at 5:30am to beat traffic and get a parking space (good decision). Although it was a hot day, I eventually was in a better mood because the family who parked next to us was super nice, and we got free Sun Drop soda and Moon Pies (I live for food puns).

Ryan is a photographer, so the eclipse was right up his alley. Little did I know, he set up all of his camera gear to throw me off track. I honestly thought all of his excitement the night before was because of the eclipse. About 30 seconds before totality, Ryan said “I’m going to throw down some food puns.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking to myself, “I love you, but why are you doing this right now?” Remember how I said I live for food puns? This man knows the way to my heart because he said:

“I want to taco bout how amazing you are. The s’more I know you, the s’more I love you. Words cannot espresso how much you mean to me. I love you a latte. Will you marry me?”

Y’all. I dang near had a heart attack. I said yes probably five times, while shaking the whole time. There was so much going on between trying to look at the eclipse, look at Ryan, and look at the ring. It was perfect because even though there were hundreds of people around, it was just us in that moment while everyone else was watching the sky.

Once the eclipse was over we (kind of) calmed down, and I yelled to the family next to us “We’re engaged!” Next thing we knew, we were being interviewed for the local Chattanooga news. This is one story I’m not going to get tired of telling.