Aubrey and I recently got engaged on an amazing vacation in Hawaii. It was unexpected and awesome, and I want to share the story so we have something special to look back on. I’m going to try to keep it short and sweet 🙂 Here is our engagement story!
How We Met
Aubrey and I met through mutual friends that are married. My best friend from college, Heather, married Aubrey’s best friend from his 20’s, Keith. We knew each other for years before anything romantic occurred to us. However, Heather will tell you she’s been plotting our relationship for years. What is special now is that we’ve already walked down the aisle together at Heather and Keith’s wedding, while we were both in different relationships. Fast forward a couple of years, and it was the right place and right time for us to reconnect in a different way.
How Did We Get Here
A fun fact about our relationship is that we were long distance for the first year we were together. He lived in Little Rock, and I lived in Knoxville. We flew, drove, and met in the middle a couple of times each month to continue to build on our new relationship. We both love our jobs, and after a year of long distance decided to start exploring how we could live in the same place. Luckily, my company is large enough to have flexibility and I moved to Little Rock in a different role for us to live together.
Finally Together
Moving in together was easy and fun. It felt as right as I imagine it could feel to move in with your best friend. We got into our new routine and just enjoyed being together in the same place. Not having the awful countdown of when we would have to leave one another was refreshing to say the least! Even though we hated long distance, a hobby we share is the love of travel. We have taken lots of fantastic, bucket list vacations in the year and a half of living together. This year, we set our eyes on Hawaii. We have both been separately, but never together. This trip is something we’ve been looking forward to all year.
The Engagement
When I say getting engaged on this trip was absolutely nowhere on my radar, I mean it was NOWHERE on my radar. We had not been to sit down and really look at rings together. There were no signs of Aubrey being nervous or weird during travel, or during the first few days in Hawaii. I know now that he wanted it to be spontaneous, intentional, and feel like us. Luckily, during a drive around the island we found a beach off the beaten path that was beautiful and we agreed we wanted to come back and spend time there later in the week. We’re beach people, and this beach is the most perfect spot I could imagine for this to happen.
The Day Of
On the day we got engaged, I dragged Aubrey to hike Diamond Head early in the morning. Afterwards, we drove a few minutes further and parked at the beautiful beach we found earlier in the week. We sat there talking, soaking up the sun, and splashing around in the ocean. When we were starting to pack up to leave, Aubrey asked me to take a picture on a rock facing towards the ocean. I pushed back a little, ready to leave and grab lunch. After a little convincing I turned my back to him so he could take the picture, and when I turned around he had the ring in his hand and asked me to marry him. I blacked out, couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and finally squeaked out “Of course!” once I got my wits about myself again.
Afterwards…
After we got engaged we had lunch at the perfect, tiny hole in the wall deli and headed back to our resort. We spent the next few hours calling family and close friends to celebrate. The rest of vacation was spent excited and looking forward to our future. We are blessed to be surrounded by lots of great people, and want a celebration that involves them all! Looking forward, we hope to get married somewhere on a beach surrounded by those we care about the most. It will be full circle from us meeting, getting engaged, and finally getting married all at the beach.