The Story of Us - Our Engagement

I thought I'd continue the story of us sharing our engagement story.  You can check out the abridged version here but there is a longer version too that's a little funny, and a little sad at the same time. 

We had this cruise planned for about a year. It was during Valentine's Day week of 2011. We were going to Nassau, St. Thomas, & St. Maarten and Joe's sister Melissa and her husband Emery were going to come with us.  This was our second cruise together and I was excited that another couple would be joining us!  They had never been on a honeymoon or anything so we were really excited that they would be able to experience their first big vacation with us!

I was really hoping and praying that Joe was going to finally propose on this trip.  We had been living together since August of 2009 and I was more than ready to be married let alone just be engaged!  I had a good feeling, but I honestly did not know for certain if it would happen on this vacation, a celebration of our 3 year anniversary and Valentine's Day, I mean you couldn't ask for a better time to be proposed to!

We flew down to Orlando the day before embarkation got a few drinks and dinner, and went to bed early so that we could be up and ready in time to take the 50 mile trip to Canaveral where we got on the ship.  So far we were having an absolute blast!  Once we got to the port we got in line and before you can even go inside a lady asks for your passport.  Joe and I had passports from our previous cruise, but Melissa and Emery decided to use their birth certificates (which was Ok'd by the travel agent) to board.  Everything went fine until Emery was asked for his ID.  He ended up having the wrong birth certificate, it has to be the one with all of your vital statistics on it, not the commemorative one.  Immediate panic mode set in, it was a Saturday and we had no idea how we were going to get someone to find Emery's certificate and get it down to us.  We called all the family that we could, we spent a few hours trying to make arrangements to get his paperwork, but we just couldn't pull it off.  We ended up boarding at the last possible time that we could and had to leave them at the port.  It was the saddest thing to watch them standing while the entire port was deserted as we left for our vacation. They ended up getting a really nice hotel room for free at the Orlando airport because Southwest felt so terrible for them.

this was our sad faces for Melissa & Emery

then we quickly realized we couldn't let it ruin our vacation

A couple days into the cruise was Valentine's Day.  We were at sea that day traveling from Nassau, our first stop, to St. Thomas, our second.  It was a little cool and cloudy that day but we spent the afternoon on the deck trying to catch some rays before dinner.  We went back to the room to get ready, Joe jumped into the shower while I took a nap.  I got in the shower and while I was in Joe went down to get some roses and a bottle of champagne.  I got out and started getting ready, Joe came back to the room with the Valentine's Day surprises which I thought were really sweet.  I was sitting at the vanity applying my make up and combing my hair, sitting in a pair of shorts and a bra, to my right I look over and Joe is down on one knee, I was totally caught off guard!  And of course I said YES!

please excuse my awful, unpolished fingers, my manicure only lasted like a day...

He told me that Melissa actually had the ring in her carry-on bag the entire time and he had to sneak it from her while we were at port and keep it in his pocket all afternoon until he could get a second to put it away.  I couldn't believe he pulled it off.  I immediately fell in love with my ring.  The diamonds are from the engagement ring and band that my dad gave my mom.  Joe brought it to a local jeweler a year prior in February of 2010 and started working on redesigning it.  I couldn't believe that he took so much time and put so much thought into making my ring special and something I could call my own.  It's not the most romantic story, but it's definitely memorable and one I'll never ever forget!

St. Thomas 

St. Thomas

St. Thomas

St. Thomas

St. Maarten

St. Maarten

 St. Maarten