So I have some exciting news.

I got engaged.

I’ve always been a firm believer that a proposal should only be a surprise in when it’s happening, not if it’s happening. Thus, James and I had talked a lot about marriage and had even looked at rings together ( I even knew when he ordered the ring) before the big day. That said, he did a great job in managing to surprise me with the actual proposal.

We had gone down to my hometown to spend some time with my family and actually look at a wedding venue (I am a planner, y’all). I had just barely missed my mom’s birthday, so we had talking about things we could do to celebrate with her. I had bounced around the idea of getting manicures together, just me and her, as that’s one of our favorite mother-daughter things, and James jumped on that and even volunteered to come too. I probably should have been suspicious at that point, but I’d spent the two weeks since he had ordered the ring convincing myself not to get my hopes up and expecting the proposal. I wanted it to be a complete surprise, so I totally ignored signs.

So we went and toured some venues and then went and got manicures (James was just in it for the hand massage). I jokingly asked him if the manicure would last long until we got engaged, and he kept reassuring that that was still a while off, he didn’t have the ring yet, etc.

Little did I know it was in his shirt pocket the whole time.

After the manicures, we had arranged to go see the new Star Wars movie with some of James’s coworkers. The movie didn’t end until 9:30, at which point it was cold and dark and I just wanted to go home. However, Salt Lake is famous for its Christmas Lights at Temple Square, a huge light display at the LDS temple. James insisted that it would be our only chance to go and we had to go that night. Reluctantly, I agreed, which was a good thing because I don’t think he had a back up plan.

So we went and walked around the grounds in the freezing cold. It’s actually really pretty, and I was having a good time. Eventually, we walked over to my absolute favorite part of the display, a giant reflecting pond filled with floating lights.

Photo Courtesy of a4gpa.

I definitely did think that this would be the perfect place to propose, but we just admired the view and then walked away. At this point we were near a building and James said he had to go to the bathroom so we went inside. While we were going inside, I swore I saw our friend and tried to get James to go and talk to him with me, but he just pulled me away. That should have been a hint, but I had already given up on the idea of him proposing that night when we walked away from a really romantic moment.

We did however go right back out to the reflecting pool after leaving the bathroom. It turns out James had lost track of our friends who were there to take pictures. Once I spotted them (oops) he knew we were go to go. He knelt on the snowy ground and asked me to marry him under the all of the pretty lights.

I said yes.