“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage...” William Shakespeare

Here is the proposal from Mikaela’s point of view:

We knew we were going to get married from about our second date. It was just a matter of when. Nick had just moved out on his own, fully furnished his apartment, gotten Lukey, and bought a new car—it was a financially strapping year to say the least! Nick had taken me to look at rings about a week after I came home from the Hospital—way back in April. I thought it was just to cheer me up and get me out of the house, little did I know he was actually ready to start designing the ring of my dreams! As the months wore on, I just felt more and more like I was ready to get this show on the road. But Nick kept reassuring me that he loved me and wanted to spend his life with me, but since he had so many financial commitments, it just couldn’t happen this year. He said maybe if he got a big raise the next year, he would be able to do it. By the Holiday season, I was convinced that he loved me, he couldn’t afford to buy a ring now, but I had nothing to worry about because we would eventually get engaged. He took me out for our anniversary in mid-December and gave me a beautiful bracelet, which further convinced me that he was doing everything he could to make me feel special, but he just couldn’t afford a ring right now. We spent Christmas morning with his family, and their tradition is to open stockings last, after they have opened every other gift. Right before they start opening their stockings, Nick’s mom pulls this box out of nowhere and starts crying. When I opened the box, I saw that she had made me my very own handmade stocking—it meant that I was really a part of the family. Then it hit me—she MUST be crying because my ring is at the bottom of the stocking. Sneaky, sneaky Nick! I started crying too while I tore through that stocking only to find…LIME TIC TACS AND A TOOTHBRUSH waiting for me at the bottom.

Although slightly disappointed, I was able to laugh at myself (and I do love lime tic tacs!). I was now 100% convinced that Nick simply could not afford a ring at that time.

We left that evening to fly out to Phoenix, AZ for Dan and Danielle’s wedding. We had a blast at the wedding, and then headed out to Sedona for a few days with my parents, Hart, and Melissa.

Sedona is my favorite place in the world, and I was sooo excited to be able to take Nick there. We spent a couple days touring around, hiking, taking jeep tours, and wandering around galleries. On the last morning, Nick woke me up before sunrise to go on a hike.  He had a fire going in our room’s fireplace, and Native American flute music playing. I thought nothing of it, threw on some warm clothes, a little snow hat, and off we went. I brought the digital camera that Nick had given me for the holidays, and as we started out on our hike, I started trying to take pictures. I was getting frustrated because since it was still so dark out, nothing was coming out. We finally got to our destination—Bell Rock. I tried to take a few pictures of the horizon, just as the sun was rising, but still they weren’t coming out. In my frustration I turned around to take a close up of the rock, and when I turned back around, Nick was down on one knee!! It was still dark enough out that I couldn’t really tell he was holding a ring. I of course, took a picture. And then it hit me…I asked over and over again “are you serious!??!?!” He must have said he was, I must have said yes—I don’t remember any of that. All I remember was the feeling like we were alone in the world together, and that was all I needed. I slipped the gorgeous ring on. We watched the rest of the sunrise and then hiked back out to the car and headed back to the Bed and Breakfast where we had to wait a few hours for the rest of the family to wake up!   I could not have asked for a more perfect engagement—in my favorite placed in the world, at my favorite time of day, with my most favorite person.