Our 5th Engagement Anniversary

On December 30th, we celebrated the 5th anniversary of our engagement! Half a decade. It's hard to believe that it's been that long already. We sort of re-lived the night of our engagement by having dinner at Chops. It was just as good as we remembered (and is still our top favorite steakhouse in Atlanta).

12/30/2012 (my last christmas picture, i promise)

I think most of you know the story, so this post is just for fun since I don't already have it anywhere here on the blog. By the time we got engaged, we had been dating for seven and a half years. We started dating in high school, so it felt like a lifetime of waiting. We talked about marriage all the time, but Bo had told me that he was not going to propose until after we graduated college. That agreed-upon timeline took *some* of the pressure off (and of course allowed him to surprise me early).

12/31/2007

Long story short, I graduated from UF on December 15th, 2007. I moved up to Atlanta right after Christmas on December 29th. Be proposed on the 30th, we celebrated New Years, and then I started my first full-time job on January 2nd. To say that week was a {very happy, exciting} whirlwind of major life changes would be a huge understatement, but I was on cloud nine.

Long story long... :) ... Bo drove up to Atlanta to help me with the move - he had one more semester at UF and was moving up the following May. At the time, I was in full move-in mode (as in, could not possibly think about anything until I was fully settled in my new place). I had an enormous list of errands to run and things I needed to buy. I dragged him around to store after store for hours. By the time we got out of Bed Bath & Beyond, he had had enough. He told me we couldn't run anymore errands that day. I was initially, obviously furious (gotta check everything off my list!). That is, until he told me it was because he had planned to propose that night, but he had the ring made back at home and it wasn't finished in time before he came up to Atlanta. {excusemewhatdidyoujustsay?!} He had made dinner reservations at Chops, and even though he couldn't propose that night, he wanted to celebrate anyway. I am not typically a crier, but I was immediately in (happy) tears. (Of course, all I could think about was how we would probably get engaged the next time I saw him and how on earth was he going to surprise me now?!) We had an amazing meal at Chops, and afterward we came home to our new apartment for a movie and a bottle of wine - nothing out of the ordinary for us. I remember him asking if I had a good time that night, since it's not every day you *almost* get engaged. Mid-laugh, he got down on one knee, said a bunch of really nice things we will never remember, and asked me to marry him. After the whole spiel he had given me earlier that night, I was completely caught off guard, which was his goal. I sat in complete shock until it finally registered and of course I said yes!! A few minutes later he had to ask if I wanted to see the ring, and it was absolutely perfect. It was even more special to me that the diamonds are from his mom's original engagement ring, since my mom's engagement ring also has three diamonds from her mother-in-law's engagement ring. I just thought it was a fun coincidence since that is not very common.

We never did watch that movie, as I spent the rest of the evening spreading our good news. However, I am fairly certain we drank the wine ;)  The next night was New Years Eve, and I was so excited to see everyone! I even got to ask Dudley and Sarah to be my bridesmaids in person which was pretty special.

Looking back on it now, it is crazy to me that that night was over five years ago now. Almost the length of time we had been dating prior to his proposal - I guess it comes with getting older, but the time since then has absolutely flown. It is also crazy to me how young we were, but how old we thought we were back then. When Bo proposed, he was the same age that my brother Paul is now (23). Weird. We were just kids! But then again, I feel like we are still kids, just five years older.