As most of you all have seen on social media already… Connor popped the question.. and I said Y E S! It’s been a few months now since Connor proposed, but every single time I look down at my hand I still get emotional.
I planned on writing this post much sooner but I went into straight wedding planning mode and finally just now made time!
I did not get around to explaining our full story and how he proposed on Instagram and thought it would be easier to write it out by answering some of the most common questions I have gotten!
How did you all meet?
This story can be a very long one but I will try to keep it as short and simple as possible! For starters, we have been dating for 6 years! For some people that is a really long time and I would always get the “when the heck is he going to propose question?” and for others that is very normal given we met at a young age in college!
Connor gets a little embarrassed when I tell people how we met (he just says in college to keep it simple) but I totally embrace it because I think it’s funny and it brings back good memories. We met in Daytona Beach on spring break our sophomore year of college (aka ratchet city). I was being a typical basic sorority girl on the beach who may or may not have had a little too much to drink the day I met him but apparently he thought it was cute lol. I had a group of friends who were on the same trip that I decided to meet up with and that is when I first saw Connor. I automatically assumed he did not go to UK because I had never seen him before… but turns out he did. We immediately hit it off and we hung out a couple of more times on the trip with plans to continue hanging out in Kentucky when we returned. I could go into more detail about all this, but it would be a novel so I will be cliche and just say the rest is history.
We dated the last 2 years of college, conquered 2 years of long distance, and now the both of us live in Washington D.C. (separately). I say that only because so many people assume we live together due to rent being outrageous in D.C., but now that we are engaged, I am so happy we waited and I am looking even more forward to living together now!
How did he propose?
So skip to good ole 2020 – one of the best and worst years for obvious reasons. For starters, he bought the ring in March (literally a week before the world basically shut down) with the intention to propose later in the Spring. Well due to Covid, the stores shut down and he was not able to get the ring until almost June!!
Anyways we love to have picnic dates and Connor had mentioned wanting to have one near UK’s campus in one of our favorite parks! Connor got me a vintage picnic basket for my birthday a few years ago and I love using it (plus it gives me a reason to shoot some content). The day Connor proposed was the day before we were leaving for a vacation with my family and he had mentioned wanting to have a picnic and framed it in a way like “if you have any campaigns coming up I can help you shoot them on the picnic before vacation” (genius idea on his part). It was also a win win for me because I had just gotten my hair, brows and nails done for vacation the day before he proposed!
People have asked “did I know it was coming?” The short answer is no… of course, after 6 years of dating we had talked about marriage and our future together.. but I did not see it coming in that particular moment! I will say though he was acting very strange that morning and I was like hmmm something is odd and I got a little suspicious but then the day was super low key – my dad was out golfing and my mom was running random errands so I was like nah it can’t be the proposal day.
We got to the arboretum with goodies and I snuck a bottle of rose into our basket of course. We were trying to pick out a shady spot and little did I know, Conn had gone there the day before to scope it out for the perfect spot (sneaky but precious). When I tell you the night was perfect, I mean it… it is normally hot and sticky in Kentucky in July but the weather was amazing and the sunset was even better!
We played our playlist of classic oldies and country sipping on rose, eating and taking photos. In this moment Connor has probably never loved the blogger / instagram boyfriend life more because he totally used it to his advantage! Im cracking up writing this thinking about the moment but Connor was getting all the angles saying “let’s see the back of the dress” blah blah blah and while I was turned around thinking he was taking photos of me… I turned around to find him down on one knee!
The moment was perfect and so surreal, I will never forget it. We spent the rest of the face-timing our parents and best friends. I was on cloud nine the entire next day and the timing was perfect because now we had a full week of vacation planned to relax and soak it all in.
PS: Connor knows how much I love photos but wanted it to be just us so he did not hire a photographer (plus he knew I had my camera)… but of course my camera DIED right before the proposal! Instead he hid his phone in the grass and got an action shot which is absolutely perfect to me!
(My ‘engaged’ story highlight on IG captures this whole night)
If you made it this far, congrats lol! I’m so excited for this next chapter of our lives and glad I get to bring you all along with us. If there’s any questions I didn’t cover, you can comment below or message me on Instagram!
ALSO – if you have planned a wedding before then please send a sister your must haves and don’t needs for a wedding!
Already dreaming of July 31, 2021, let the fun begin!
XOOO,
Shelby
