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Mary Grace
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Nick
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It was a rainy Friday evening (1/11/2019) and all I wanted to do was go home, rest, and cuddle with Nick and the puppies. After recovering from a cold, the last thing I had on my mind was to go out for dinner.
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I had told her late the night before that I wanted to surprise her with a dinner so she should take something to change into to go to a nice dinner. I wanted to make it seem spontaneous so she wouldn’t think I was planning anything special. It was the day after my birthday and I didn’t put any emphasis on the dinner so she had no idea it was more than a normal date night.
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After getting out of my scrubs and suffering a brief wardrobe malfunction, I waited for Nick to pick me up at work. I knew he wanted to kickoff our “Weekend of Love” (leading to our 1st year anniversary) with a romantic dinner.
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When she got into the car I subtly played “Honeybee,” one of our favorite and most sentimental songs together. I didn’t tell her where we were going, but she figured out soon enough that our destination was L'Oca d'Oro.
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Nick is an extremely thoughtful person and I had a gut feeling he was going to pick this place not only for the delicious Italian food, but also the significance of this place; we celebrated here after signing papers to build our new home together!
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Dinner was amazing of course, but it was hard to keep my nervousness from showing. At this point I was already wearing a wired microphone, I was so worried throughout dinner that I would slip up and give away the surprise. But I somehow managed to keep it all together and didn’t let anything show.
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Obviously I had no clue… I had a delicious plate of pasta waiting to get into my tummy!
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My distraction method has always been putting as much food in front of us as possible, and the best meatballs ever fit that purpose perfectly.
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I devoured that plate and was ready to call it a night. Until, Nick mentioned he wanted to check out the progress of the home… in the evening… it’s dark and rainy… (insert blank expression emoji face).
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I had her well trained at this point. For weeks beforehand I kept asking if we could go and check on the house at the oddest hours imaginable, so when I did the same that night she wasn’t surprised, but because we were so close she finally indulged me.
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I thought he was crazy, but I knew he was just as excited as I am to see if our new home even had a roof! Holding his hand tightly, we drove a few blocks to visit our future home. As we turned around a dark corner, I immediately saw LIGHTS…. I saw fairy lights framing a home, our beautiful home. I immediately knew what was coming up next and I had no words.
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She didn’t do anything at all. She just sat there, complete shock on her face. Not a single word, no movement, nothing.
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I was like a frozen statue! I love and enjoy getting surprised, but he literally shocked me!
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A little backstory before we move on. What she didn’t know was that I didn’t go to work that day like she thought I had. I took the entire day off and spent my day at the house preparing everything. Pete and Sanetra came over to help me, there was just no way I could have possibly finished in time with all that needed to be done. There were lights on the columns, the walls, the floor, lanterns hanging from the ceiling, it was just beautiful. Our construction manager even got one of the workers to move a block of wood to create a ramp to the front door of the house. We talked with one of the neighbors behind us and she let us use the outlet in her garage to power the lights. We worked the entire day, but right as I was about to leave to pick Mary Grace up from work, DISASTER STRUCK! It had started raining late into the day and at this point we realized that one of the power strips had been left in the rain and short circuited. We had no power to anything and it was completely dark at this point. I couldn’t stay any longer because I had to go or she’d realize something was wrong. Pete and Sanetra would have to figure out how to get power back on and I had to delay. The original plan was to propose to her first and go out to eat afterwards, but since that wasn’t going to work I had to stall at dinner until I got a signal from them that everything was ready.
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Again, I was having a grand ole’ time enjoying pasta and reminiscing our almost full year together!
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It took some work to get her out of the car. She didn’t open the door or unbuckle, nothing. Finally I got her up and moving towards the front door.
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I can vividly remember him holding my hand as he led me to the ramp. I stood in awe of these beautiful twinkling lights and felt like I was in my own romantic movie! This moment did not feel real at all. Nick began to start a beautiful speech, which I don’t remember anything he said…
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I don’t remember any of what I said either. I took her by the hand from the entrance back to where our future master bedroom was. There was no roof at this point so in the middle of our bedroom I got down on one knee in a puddle and asked her to be my wife.
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In my head, I thought I immediately said yes. In reality, I stood there smiling at him which probably felt like forever for Nick. I couldn’t imagine this was real life and my dream is becoming a reality! As the rain began to pour and reflect the lights, I said YES YES YES!
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It really does feel like forever when you’re down on one knee, ring in hand, waiting for a response. It was worth it for the moment she said yes. All the hours in the cold and rain setting everything up. All the weeks and months of planning leading up to this. All of this was worth it for that one moment that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.
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This moment will forever live in my memory. I love you so much Mahal (my love)!
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Forever Mahal. I will always love you.
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