Wedding Wednesday: Our Engagement Story

Today is my first Wednesday Wednesday! Hopefully this won't turn into all wedding talk but considering I'm currently unemployed and all my friends and family (other than my fiance) live in GA, there's a pretty good chance that will happen. Good thing I have wedding planning to keep me entertained!

In honor of my first wedding post, here's our engagement story:

As I have mentioned earlier, I really did think that Brad and I would be getting engaged at the beach. However, when the time actually came I really had no idea.

Brad's mom, her boyfriend (basically his step dad, they've been together for like 10 years), and his grandmother were staying at the condo we had rented because we were unable to leave for vacation until July 3rd, a Wednesday, and the condo rental place made us rent the entire two weeks. My family had also gone to Siesta Key, FL during the week of the 4th of July and were staying at a separate complex. July 4th was our first official day of vacation and after a long day on the beach, we all got ready and met up for a combined family dinner.

Brad had originally wanted to take the families to a restaurant called Sharky's On The Pier in Venice Beach (this should have struck me as strange that Brad was planning everything, he hates planning, but at the time it didn't). It's a pretty casual restaurant but has a great atmosphere with live music nightly and you can walk on the beach and pier after leaving dinner. It's a really beautiful setting. Unfortunately, with it being Independence Day and the fact that they were doing fireworks on the beach, there were no reservations available and we had to choose another restaurant.
 

We eventually did eat at Sharky's, twice actually.
Here we are waiting on our table.



Brad's second restaurant choice was Casey Key Fish House. It's a local restaurant located on Casey Key, one of the wealthiest key islands in Sarasota, therefore the beach is gorgeous and well-maintained. When we got out of our cars and walked to the restaurant, we were quickly told that the kitchen had shut down about 30 minutes earlier so that the staff could celebrate the holiday. At this point, Brad was getting visibly frustrated, but I just assumed it was because our plans kept falling through.

Eventually we decided on a small restaurant called Turtle's. It was definitely the fanciest of all the restaurants we had been to so far. By this time, I was so hungry that I completely pigged out on my Coconut Crusted Mahi Mahi - something I most likely would not have done if I had known I was about to be proposed to. Oh well, what can I say, I like food. Brad, however, could not finish his Bang Bang Shrimp. Normally this isn't out of the ordinary for us to take home leftovers when we go out, but he ordered an appetizer portion and still couldn't eat all 6 shrimp. Again, this should have triggered something in my brain, but it did not...

The two of us after dinner.

Little did I know this would be our last picture as boyfriend and girlfriend.

After dinner, we went across the street to Turtle Beach. Like it's name suggests, you could see where numerous sea turtles had laid their eggs, which I thought was so neat. The sun had just set but it was still light outside. We walked around on the beach a little bit and then Brad suggested we have our parents take a picture of us. This should have been the real kicker, Brad hates having his picture taken and I had just made him have his picture taken like 10 minutes ago. Again, nothing.

I handed over my camera to my dad and took my place beside Brad. We took one picture and then Brad turned to look at me, dropped down on one knee, and simply asked me to marry him (I found out later this was because he had been so nervous about everything not working out like he had planned that he forgot everything sweet he had planned to say. Don't worry, I got it all out of him later, but that's secret). Luckily for him, I didn't need him to say anything else. I don't think there's ever been a time when I didn't believe I would marry him (well, maybe not on the first date, but pretty soon there after). While Brad's proposal wasn't exactly what he had planned (his original plan involved the first restaurant, of course, and writing his proposal out to me in the sand, among other things), it was exactly perfect for me and I can't imagine it being any other way. All of our family members knew it was coming, with the exception of my little sister, who I think cried more than I did.

    

 

After our proposal, our families went back to our condo and watched the fireworks that were being shown down on the public beach. The best part of this was that someone was selling wishing lanterns on the beach by our condo (kind of like the ones at the end of Hangover 2 or in Tangled, never thought I'd use those two movies for the same reference). When he heard of our engagement, he gave us one of the wishing lanterns for free. We, of course, wished for a long and happy marriage and watched our lantern sail out over the ocean until it was just a tiny little dot. We have some pretty great pictures of this, Brad's mom is e-mailing them to us, but unfortunately we haven't gotten them yet. I can't wait to marry my very best friend and officially start our lives together.