Engagement Story Contest

Yesterday, my Aunt Sandy saw Kathy Lee and Hoda’s Engagement Story Contest and encouraged me to enter ours.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but when I saw the grand prize of a California Getaway… my arm was twisted.

As I started uploading pictures and typing out our story, I realized I haven’t really shared it with you all here.  I first started blogging on my Wedding Blog in October of 2010.  Since then I’ve started a second blog, and Housewife Glamour is officially my own self-hosted that’s here to stay.  I’ve gone through every post from my wedding blog, organized the stories onto this site and you can read all about our wedding planning process on my Wedding Page.

Now onto the contest:

The submission form wouldn’t let me go over 3 pictures and 3000 characters, and it was quite the challenge condensing our story to that.  Here’s why…

The Proposal:

Scott grew up all over the Arkansas/Missouri borderline.  Every summer when we get a week of vacation time, we head up there to see his family.  This year we planned a little get-away in the middle of our week, but I had no idea just how good of a trip this would be.

We began our 2-days to ourselves by checking into a hotel called Grand Central in the heart of Eureka Springs, AR. The place was cool and antique looking, built in 1883, and our room looked like a doll house.

The entire city is very Victorian looking and is made up of cute, older buildings and houses up and down the Ozark Mountains. We felt spoiled on this vacation spending rest of the day walking around, shopping, getting massages, and eating at the best Italian restaurant I’ve EVER eaten – Ermilios.

After dinner we came back to the hotel, and I turned in knowing we were going to wake up early to catch the sunrise at the Christ of the Ozarks Statue for some prayer and devotional time. This 75 foot monument of Jesus Christ is at the peak of the Ozarks overlooking the rest of the forest and mountains. Even though I went to bed early, I kept waking up to find Scott on his computer almost the entire night, thinking WHY is he still up at 3am?

When the alarm went off at 5:45am I was tired but excited to start the day! We got ready and headed over to the statue with a Bible, blanket, and snacks in hand. By the time we pulled up to the statue is was about 7am and there wasn’t a soul in site, so we drove right in and set up camp.

It was perfect timing to see the sun rising behind the statue, and when we walked up to where we were going to sit we saw a family of dear. We took some pictures, sat down and began to read verses. About 5 minutes in – it sounds crazy – but a bunny came up close to our blanket followed by birds and some squirrels. It really felt like we was sitting in the middle of a Disney movie, like Snow White or Pocahontas.

Little did I know, Scott had stayed up all night putting together a Bible Study about love and relationships. We read and talked about what the words mean and after almost an hour we got to 1 Corinthians 13: 4-13: ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  This was my favorite part and actually was the same verse I put on a bracelet I gave Scott for his birthday last year.

I started seeing a serious look in his eyes and we ended our study praying together in front of the statue. When I opened my eyes, there he was in front of me with a ring box. At this point we both started balling and couldn’t say anything for a minute or two! I asked him what was in the box and he told me to open it…so I did. When I saw it was empty I was really confused. He then told me to look back in the bible and when I opened it I saw a pretty, dainty diamond ring.

This ring was adorable, and I was only confused because it was nothing at all like I had imagined it to be. Scott then said, “Before you look at the ring, let me tell you what it means to me…” This ring he used to propose is the ring from his mother and fathers original marriage. He told me mine is still being set and just wasn’t ready before we left.  For a few weeks I wore his mom’s ring as a “placeholder”, and couldn’t wait to get the real thing.

Eventually, we headed out to grab breakfast and went horseback riding.  I’ve been before, but never in the middle of the Ozark Mountains – it was just like a scene from a movie and was absolutely beautiful!

We go back to the hotel, pack up, and head out to Branson, MO for what I think is the afternoon. I fell asleep in the car and woke up in front of a Hilton by the River. When I asked Scott why we were here he said it was because of the “free parking.” When I looked out the window, we were greeted by Scott’s best friend from college and his wife holding drinks to celebrate.

I was SO excited to see them and realized we would be staying at the hotel that night.

As the day went on, more of Scott’s friends from school showed up and I was excited to go to dinner. They were talking about making reservations at a really nice 5 star place called Candlestick Inn, but I didn’t think we would get in. After an afternoon of celebrating, we got ready for dinner and were greeted with an Engagement Basket in our room – filled with wine, nuts and dried fruit, monogrammed H towels, and 100 cal packs of snacks – these people did their research! 🙂

As we walked into the restaurant I knew there would be 6 of us and they kept trying to sit us down at tables set for 4….weird.  After the second move, I still didn’t catch on until I looked over to the left when the waiter offered us a big table and saw the tables filled with Scott’s family!

Slowly, I realize this was all planned for an Engagement dinner and WHAT?!? There are MY PARENTS sitting at the end! Scott asked them to fly in to meet the rest of his family and celebrate with us for the rest of the week. Scott had planned this dinner a month ago, and all of his family lives at least 45 mins to 2 hours away, so it meant the world to both of us that they were there, since we almost never get to see them.

We spent the rest of the week with our parents and started to already begin planning with them.

Fast forward to our Engagement Party a month later…

It was time for Scott to make his toast to the crowd, and he immediately got choked up.  I knew he could get emotional, but I had no idea it would be so hard for him to get through his words.  At the time, I thought “Okay buddy, you can get through this – it’s just a toast!” but he really let our family and friends in on the emotional, sweet, and loving side to him that most had only heard about before. This time, I think he melted a lot of hearts, including my own.

The entire week, I had asked him over and over, “is it here yet?” talking about MY ring.  I couldn’t wait for the day I had a ring of my own, and I could barely take the suspense of what it looked like. After two days of telling me it wasn’t going to be here in time for the party, I had learned to accept it…kind of.  I put on a happy face, but in my mind I was still pretty bummed. Oh well, I thought – sooner or later I’ll have it and I’m sure it will be worth the wait.

During the middle of his toast, Scott mentioned I had been wearing his mother’s ring, and that mine had taken longer than expected to arrive.  From being the jokester he is, it did not surprise me that what he pulled out next was a HUGE black box with a HUGE costume diamond ring inside, while saying “Here you go….wasn’t it worth the wait?!”

I giggled, took the giant ring, and was ready to give him a hug anyways and then the tears really started flowing.  He couldn’t really speak for a minute, and when he pulled himself together I finally figured out what was going on.  He told me to look under the big ring inside of the box, and BAM – there she was in all of her glory.  MY RING! I couldn’t believe it!

When I pulled it out, Scott took it from me and did the last thing I expected.  He got down on one knee, and re-proposed!

We both started crying, and I showered him with hugs and THANK YOUs over and over.

I guess you could say he did alright. 😉