There were 2 nights that ring back in my memory constantly of while I have dated Melissa. The first being our first date and the second being Valentine’s day.
Our first date was at my apartment. I had just ran into her at US Play about 2 weeks before and we started talking on the phone and texting a little and we kept saying we needed to hang out sometime. Then she ended up stopping by my apartment for about 30 minutes one night while I had some guys over to play Wii. She just wanted to say hey and all so I walked her out when she left. It probably sounds cheesy to say but when I said thanks for stopping by and gave her a hug, I just KNEW something was different. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I felt a warmth in my heart. Well, I somehow got around to asking her what she was doing for New Years and she said she is working until 9pm. So I asked her what she was doing afterwards. So we made plans to hang out after she got off and watch a movie. But when I found out she hadn’t eaten dinner I told her I would make her some dinner. So I went up to the grocery store and got some chicken and pasta and alfredo sauce and some sparking grape juice and everything else. So when she came over I had it all laid out and ready for her. We watched Dodgeball and watched my cell phone clock for the new year to come in. At midnight, we said an awkward Happy New Years and toasted our grape juice. After the movie, we ended up talking until about 4am just reminiscing on old times at Kennesaw First Baptist and our time growing up. (For those of you who don’t know, we have known each other for 10 years or so. We grew up in the youth group together at church.) It was a night I will never forget.
Well for Valentine’s Day I went all out. It was our first Valentine’s and I already knew this is the girl I was going to ask to marry me. So on the night before I gave her a poem that basically said, “There are not enough ways to tell you that I love you, so I plan on using our first Valentine’s together to start telling you all the ways.” So the next morning she woke up to a rose with a little note attached to it. It read “I love you because you brighten my day.” And all throughout the day there were roses wherever she turned. I was always 2 or 3 steps ahead of her. When she got in her car to go to class, there was one in her front seat. When she went to class she got one there. We met up for lunch at Subway and the guy that made our sandwich said “Oh ya…I think I have something else for you.” And that rose read “I love you because you are so cute when you eat.” That night we went to dinner at Provino’s and I gave her another rose before we went in. Just everywhere she turned there was another rose with a “I love you because” note. After dinner we drove out to Acworth Beach and took a walk around Cauble Park and on the beach. We went out by the water and just talked and talked and talked. The whole day was pretty special already but there was something extra special about our conversations at the beach that night. It seems like that would have already been the perfect date, but there was more. When we left there we went back to my apartment and I had dessert set up for us. There were tons of tea light candles around and an empty vase on the table. We put all her roses in the vase and I asked her to count them. 11. “Oh…well, I have to give you a dozen since it’s Valentine’s and all.” The 12th rose said “I love you because…well, there are just not enough ways to tell you…so…” And I ran upstairs and grabbed another dozen that all had little notes on them saying “I love you.” It was a pretty awesome night and another oen I will never forget.
Well for my proposal I wanted to use a little bit of both of those nights. Her favorite place to eat is The Melting Pot and I had actually never eaten there. So we went to eat there and it was incredible. I love that place now. We had swiss cheese and white chocolate. We didn’t even do the meat part and we were stuffed. Afterwards, we went down to Acworth beach and took crazy pictures and just hung out. We decided to walk along the beach and then all of a sudden…we stumbled across a bottle. And it had a letter in it. Little did she know it was the same bottle of grape juice from our first date on New Year’s Eve. I had to distress it a little so she wouldn’t recognize it. Here’s the bottle:
So I pulled out the letter and read it to her. Here is that letter:
And I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. It was pretty awesome. I even had my buddy Jacob come down and hide in the bushes to film it. Well here is that video:
Well that’s it. She absolutely loved it. And just in case you are wondering…she said yes. Thanks to everyone who has said congrats to us. We will be announcing an engagement party and wedding date real soon. It was such a great night. Here are some of the pictures we took right before and after. The ones of her reading the letter was her re-reading it because she still couldn’t believe it all.
If you can’t see the video, go here. And if you can’t see the pictures from the whole night, go here.
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