Our Engagement Story

I realized that I've never put the story of how Drew and I got engaged up here, and with less than three weeks until the wedding, now seems like a pretty good time!

The super short version of our engagement is on our wedding website, but we've never written out the long version. I want to make sure Drew and I remember that day with all the details for a long time, so recording everything now (almost nine months after the fact...) seems like a good idea to me. Plus I'm pretty sure some of our friends and family have only heard the short version and might enjoy learning the whole story.

Our Engagement Story: The Long Version
Sometime back around November or so, Drew's family began tossing around the idea of taking a family vacation sometime in January, before the new school semester started up. The plan slowly started taking shape, including an invite for me and a destination - Disney World! Drew and I both grew up in families that frequently vacationed in Disney World, so we were all psyched about the trip. Plus, this would be the first time Drew and I were back in Disney World since our internships (during which we met) ended.

We "officially" received our tickets and vacation plan on Christmas Day.

About to open our Disney Vacation gift! Thanks Mom & Dad P!

On New Year's Eve we were off! Most of the family had already driven down to Florida, but I had to work NYE morning, so Drew and I flew down that day to meet everyone else. We stayed in a condo about an hour away from Orlando that we borrowed from the extended family.

I should probably mention at this point that I had no idea Drew was planning to propose on this vacation. I knew he had already talked to my Dad about getting engaged when we visited my parents for Thanksgiving, but when I didn't get a ring for Christmas I figured we wouldn't get engaged for months. I don't know how I came to that conclusion, but somehow in my mind it was Christmas or forever later. Anyways...

We spent a few awesome days enjoying the warm, sunny weather and the beach right behind our condo before heading over to Disney for the night! We shopped Downtown Disney and spent a fun evening at Jellyrolls before resting up for our one-day Parks marathon (Disney in one day is no joke!).

I should also probably mention that, because I had no idea what Drew was scheming, I unintentionally freaked him out a couple of times. See, Drew was hiding my ring in his ironic fanny pack, which I kept harassing him about all morning. Including hitting it and saying something along the lines of, "What do you even have in there anyways?" Good thing Drew has a pretty solid poker face.

After starting the day at Epcot, we eventually made our way over to the Magic Kingdom. This is where Drew and I met (he worked there), and during the two months or so that we knew each other and were working at Disney together, we never actually had our picture taken in front of Cinderella's Castle. So of course we planned to finally have that iconic picture taken during the family vacation. After lunch Drew suggested taking the picture, so the whole family headed over to the Castle with us. Everyone whipped out their cameras (which I didn't even think was suspicious - I'm clearly super observant) to get our picture.

Our crappy "Castle" picture.

After we took this Drew said he had an "idea" for the next picture and went to go get something out of his fanny pack. This was when I finally got suspicious! I sure am quick one, huh?

He walked back holding a little box, and I could not believe he was going to propose to me! I think I just kept saying dumb stuff like "Nuh-uh! Are you serious?!" for about a minute until he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!

This is Drew asking me to marry him.

Of course I said yes! And we have plenty of photographic evidence (plus a video) of this all happening, thanks to Drew's family being in on the secret and recording the whole thing. 

Putting a ring on it.

Besides the whole being engaged thing, the best part of this proposal was the reactions of everyone around us. We have so many pictures with people blatantly staring at us in the background, probably wondering what nerds get engaged in Disney World (answer: the same nerds that meet in Disneyworld and plan to honeymoon there as well). One woman even came up to us to ask if we really did just get engaged because her little kids saw the proposal and were wondering.

I can barely even remember what happened the rest of the day because I was still so shocked and happy to finally be engaged to the love of my life. We spent quite a bit of time calling/texting/Facebooking our family and friends to tell them the news and were completely exhausted by the end of the day. All the excitement definitely took a lot out of us!

The cell phone picture I sent my sisters to tell them the news.

And now here we are, almost nine months later and only 19 days away from our wedding. I can't believe this whole engagement journey is almost over, but I am so ready to move onto the next chapter in mine and Drew's life together.