So here is our engagement story, and my favorite story I've ever told. It's a good one.
A few weeks ago, I asked Ryan if he would be able to come visit for Valentine's day (it's one of my favorite holidays) and he told me he had to work because they had a President's day tournament that weekend at work and he had to be there. This was very typical of our whole relationship; he had prior commitments to soccer and couldn't make a trip or we couldn't hang out, so I didn't think anything of it. Instead, I watched Valentine's day and listened to love songs and ate chocolate and cried just a ~little~ because I was weirdly emotional last week. I also conveniently demanded we hang out the next weekend, as ry knew I would, and he went with it. I said we should meet halfway since that was fair, but he insisted we go to charlottesville. It's my favorite place, so I easily agreed.
The whole week leading up to our day date in Charlottesville, I was so excited. I remember telling people, "I just need to get through this week and then I can see Ryan and have sweet tea." Then Friday night rolled around and suddenly I had a thousand lessons to plan and hadn't slept very well and was just completely exhausted. I remember him calling me and responding in a very sassy way but he just rolled with that and continued to be sweet. Again, didn't throw me off because that is also very typical. I went to bed that night later than I wanted and remember being a little annoyed that he was making me wake up at 7:00 am on my only day to sleep in before the sun rises. But, I just went with it because he was planning a date and I didn't want to take advantage of that (because that is not normal--I am the date planner).
The next morning rolls around and I'm on the road when Ryan calls. He's telling me how excited he is to surprise me and I said, "Okay if you can plan a cute date like this in one night, you can plan a proposal fast too." And he disagreed, playing into the role of being an indecisive confusing guy. OK STOP. Background story: For the past 2 years ry and I pretty much knew we wanted to get married but we were both in school and long distance so we would just talk about it. Consistently, over the past two years, Ryan has convinced me that his plan was to get engaged when he was 24. So I was thinking it would happen next year. Okay, back to the story. I get to Charlottesville and Ryan is there with Bodo's waiting for me in the car to take me to humpback rock (one of our favorite hikes, ever)!
We got to the Blue Ridge Parkway and it was closed due to road conditions. I suggested we go sit down somewhere because I was tired, but Ryan insisted we go on a hike. We hiked the trails at Monticello for about 2 hours and I would say a good hour of that was me trying to get him to talk about his timeline, as far as when he saw an engagement or marriage happening. He kept laughing during this conversation and I didn't know why, but he was listening to me so I didn't make a big deal about it. I even said, "part of me was like hmmm maybe he'll propose today because he's planning this extravagant date but there's no way," to which he replied, "yeah it's just a nice date so don't get your hopes up." My hopes weren't up though, because again, I wasn't expecting it.
We then decided to go to UVA and just walk around. We picked up some dumplings and then parked near Ryan's dorm freshman year. We walked from his old dorm to the lawn, then the whispering wall, then back to his car. He talked about how 4.5 years ago we made this same walk and he was so nervous to ask me to be his girlfriend, so he waited until the next day.
We go to his friend's house to change and get ready for the "surprise" part of our date. He expected it would take me an hour to get ready, but it only took me 20 minutes (thank you student teaching in Roanoke City). To kill time, we decided to go to trader joes. Duh. I mean, what else would you do to kill time?
We left Trader Joes and were finally headed to the surprise. I love surprises, so I was excited. I thought maybe it was a hot air balloon ride or we were going to like an Indian Restaurant. I truly wasn't sure. He made me close my eyes when we were two minutes out so that I didn't see any signs. Once we got there, I opened my eyes to a parking lot and trees in front of me. He told me to turn around, and I knew exactly where we were... Pippin Hill! He was shocked I knew what it was. We got out of the car, after he told me not to bring anything with me and that we could come back and get it, and he suggested we walk through the vineyard. This was the first moment where I was like wait.... maybe...there's no way...stop it morgan, control yourself. We were walking through the vineyard and I looked around and there was no one around, no photographers, so I was like okay yeah you're definitely just overthinking it. Then, Ryan told me to look at the mountains. I was like... okay? I've seen them before, but sure, why not I'll look. I looked, and continued walking. Then, he said, "well which one is your favorite?" I decided he was planning a really sweet date, so I would just play along. I sat for a second and picked out my favorite one then was like okay let's keep moving. As we turned the corner of a line of trees, Ryan said, "well I have one more surprise for you..." And I turned and saw a lone tree with lanterns and pictures strung around it and a rug lying in front of it. My first thought was, "wow we are going to eat cheese on a rug by ourselves, that's so cute!" As we got closer, and I stepped on the rug, I faintly heard Today was a Fairytale playing in the background. That was the exact moment I knew he was proposing. It's the soundtrack to Valentine's Day, sung by my favorite artist, so I just knew. He turned me around and said the sweetest words to me I've ever heard, and the next thing I know, he's saying he doesn't want to go one more day without knowing I will be his wife (or something like that, to be honest I kind of blacked out at the shock and excitement), and he was on one knee. I was so excited and saying things like "Ryan if this is a joke it's really mean!" Then, I saw the ring. The most perfect thing I have ever seen! And the box said, "Lauren B" on it (which, if we have ever talked about engagement rings before... you know how much I love Lauren B.) and I was even more shocked. For the next two minutes, I made a series of shocked/excited faces saying, "I can't believe this... oh my gosh."
Next thing I know, some of our best friends/amazing photographers and videographers are running out from behind the bushes. We stayed there for a while and took pictures, and reminisced on the times when I would joke that Ryan wasn't going to propose until I was like 40. I kept asking who knew, who I should call, where we were going, etc. No one would answer my questions, but they said I would find out soon.
On the way over to the next surprise, Ryan told me that 4.5 years ago, on August 20, 2011, he was planning on asking me to be his girlfriend at the whispering wall. He could;t find the whispering wall, however, so he took that as a sign to not ask me to be his girlfriend. When I was leaving the next morning, he said bye to me and shut my car door. Seconds later, he opened the door back up and asked me to be his girlfriend. Fast forward to Saturday, he told me he didn't want to make the same mistake of waiting an extra day when he knew its what he wanted.
An hour (and another episode of closing my eyes on a windy road) later, and Ryan is leading me out of the car to a mysterious place. My eyes are still closed and when he put his hands over my eyes, he told me I could ope my eyes. Obviously I still couldn't see anything. He counted down. 3, 2, 1. And then I felt the biggest rush of love and excitement I have ever experienced. I saw my family, my very best friends, Ryan's family, and Ryan's best friend. I wanted to hug everyone at once. I hugged my mom first and she started crying. I didn't cry until I hugged my brother because he was the first guy that meant something to me besides my dad, and because he was so happy for me. It wan't until 10 minutes in that I realized we were all in some house I had never seen before, so I said, "Wait...whose house is this?" And that's when I found out he rented it for two nights (my friends and family stayed there Friday night) and we were all staying there tonight. We would eat barbecue, make s'mores, and talk about all the times that I complained about not having a timeline from Ryan since my roommates knew in November. It was the best night of my life. I will never forget the way ryan's hands were shaking in the trader joes parking lot, hugging my parents after the proposal, and seeing the tears in my roommates eyes. Thank you to anyone who planned, crafted, prayed, or anything else in preparation for this day. It was more than anything I could ever think of. The amount of joy and laughter and love that was felt since that night is incomparable. I waited exactly 4.5 years for this moment, and it was worth everything for that moment.
I don't know details of the wedding quite yet, but I do know I am the luckiest girl in the whole world and that I have a great group of best friends to stand by my side the day I become Morgan Elizabeth Zinkhan.
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