We’re engaged!

Chet and I are so excited to share some amazing news — We are getting MARRIED! We got engaged a little over a month ago but I thought now was as good a time as any to let you all in on how it went down. Chet was a total sneak and had been hiding the ring for most of the summer in the apartment we shared in Lexington. He had nestled it amongst some computer parts in one of our closets. (“I KNEW you wouldn’t look through those.” Touche.) On his birthday, we headed up to Newport, KY for a day of celebrating…little did I know by mid-afternoon we would have even MORE to celebrate. After a lunch over-looking the river, Chet asked if I’d like to spend a little time walking around before we ventured to the aquarium (his special birthday excursion). I said “absolutely” and we walked along the river and then on to the purple pedestrian bridge that stretches across the Ohio River. He asked me to marry him as we stopped in a particularly sunny spot to look out over the railing. After I said YES (actually, I believe I said “Of course I will!!!”), and the ring was on my finger (I excitedly asked, “Can I put it on?!” LOL), we walked across the rest of the bridge into Ohio. I felt like I floated the whole way. The mixture of the adrenaline and the warm sunshine makes those minutes on the bridge, in retrospect, feel so surreal. I texted a picture of the ring to my family and spoke to my mom for a few minutes on the phone as we walked back across the bridge. After we made it back onto Kentucky soil, we headed to the Newport Aquarium for a giddy few hours where I spent equal parts looking at marine life and looking at my new ring! We then went for celebratory drinks and snacks at the Hofbrauhaus Beer Garden. I still can’t get over how perfect the proposal was. A year earlier, as we stood on that very same bridge, I fantasized about how it would be the perfect engagement location. And weirder still, YEARS earlier, in a convo with girlfriends, I confessed my feeling that being proposed to on a proposer’s birthday would be the most romantic gesture! Funny how these things work out!

I’m so excited about this chapter in our lives and wanted to share it all with you. Here are a few more pictures from our magical day, if you’d like to see…

A new feature at the Newport Aquarium is this suspended rope bridge which runs the entire length of the shark tanks! Talk about an adrenaline rush! Add to it the fact that my brand new ring needed to be sized down a few sizes and I had myself a pretty heart-pounding experience. One I will certainly NEVER forget!

Chet assured me that HAD I dropped the ring in the tank one of the aquarium staff would have GLADLY scuba’d in to find it. Still, happy I avoided such measures! Haha! I have to admit, I ogled this sparkly beauty the whole car ride home. Once we arrived, we posted our news on social media (that’s like a REAL step in the process these days, right?) and everyone was so wonderful and nice and kind. We’re so lucky to have such amazing folks consistently and happily in our corner.