The One Post

Alright, alright. The time has come for the post you have all been anxiously waiting for... The Engagement Post! Yay!

It all began in the sleepy town of Los Angeles. My family and Joe had gone to visit my cousins, primarily to attend a wedding, but also to enjoy a delightful vacation away from the chilly winter weather of Utah. Also, Joe wanted to propose {spoiler alert}, but I didn't know that yet so pretend I didn't tell you.

Waiting outside the temple

Stealing flowers from the trees to give to me 

The Sunday after the wedding, Joe, my family, and I went to Santa Monica Pier to wander around and look at the ferris wheel that was too expensive to ride and stare at the waves that were too cold to enter.

Stud muffin on the pier

Still unsuspecting of what was to come...
Me, that is. Pretty sure Joe probably had an idea.

We wandered around the sand and under the pier for a bit. My family was, at this point, keeping conspicuously distant. I had suspected the whole weekend that a proposal might be coming, as Joe likes to do special things in unique places so as to add a romantic flair. But no one brought any purses or other receptacles to the beach, and I noticed no suspicious trade-off of cargo between anyone {aka ring box}, and ALSO I had helped Joe pack all his stuff and never saw any evidence of ringage, so by this point I had pretty much given up on the whole getting proposed to thing. Ergo I didn't really notice my family's weird distance-keeping.

And now, please forgive me as I regale you with sunset-y beach photos.

Cutie

Under the pier

Artistic scene photo

Da boys

Spencer's model photo.
Note the scruffly beard. 

Cue oo-ing and ahh-ing

After wandering about for a bit and getting quite chilly, I decided to be cheesy and suggested we write our initials in a sand heart. I'm pretty sure that's kind of a necessity when you're at a beach with someone you like a lot.

Cheesy beach heart

Another fancy photo. I'm sorry. 

Joe....minutes before IT happened!

Then, I ran away. The ocean air was brisk and my family was huddled about 100 feet up the beach being anti-social {I thought}, so I went to join them. Joe didn't follow. I became mildly suspicious. But not entirely {see reasons above}. He waved me back over and I sort of sprinted, which I don't think he was expecting, because when I got there he only had "M" and "A" written into the sand. 

In my usual awkward way, I stood and silently stared expectantly as he completed the words, as if I didn't understand what letters were... but it was kind of obvious at that point, and I'm not completely oblivious. Usually. 

And then...tah dah! 

The finished message. Gasp!

Yes. They said "Marry Me?" Quite shocking and unexpected for everyone reading these suspenseful words.

What happened next is pretty fuzzy. He got down on one knee, said some things that were possibly quite lovely and eloquent about me being his wife, and opened the ring box {which he had sneakily concealed in the pocket of his shorts}. Inside was a ring made of twine. My memory of the event clarifies at that point.

"What is that?" I said, polite as ever.

"It's a ring!" he said.

 Yes, it was a ring. A twine ring. I asked repeatedly if he was serious. Like this: "Are you serious? Are you really serious?" But not in a squealy, surprised way. No. In an 'I mean business' type of way, as though I actually doubted his sincerity. Finally he said, "Yes I'm serious, dang it!" and right about then I remembered I was supposed to say yes and be cute and loving. So I did those things.

Another sunset picture, so that you don't have
to read too many words all in one giant paragraph. 

I forgot to mention that sometime before he proposed, a giant swarm of photographers came swooping in on us. They were there taking pictures for an LA Photo Walk with some big name HDR guy. That's irrelevant now, but it's of some minor significance later in the tale.  

We hugged. My parents, who of course knew about the whole thing, took pictures of us being cute from afar, so that was nice.

Us being cute and engaged

 Once we had finished up with the lovey dovey stuff, we ran back to my family {for realsies this time} and since we were all giddy and smiley--and engaged, of course--my mom took a bunch of pictures, and I like them.

Showing off the fancy shmancy ring. Which
I loved, by the way.  He even tied it in a bow. :)

Blue-eyed babes

My ring! I wore it for days, before switching to
another temporary one that wouldn't dissolve. 

All the photographers on the beach

One of the many photographers came over and asked if he could take a picture of us against the sunset. We agreed. Free awesome photography? Yes, please. He ended up taking what is still one of my favorite pictures of the two of us with an amazing sunset in the background. Perfect, since Joe had waited until sunset to propose just so it could look as amazing as it did in that picture*. Thank you, Ed! 

*You can see that picture in the "Something Kinda Cool Happened" post that I did about getting engaged. If you're curious. 

The next couple of pictures have nothing to do with getting engaged, except that I guess we took them during our engagement. They're just cute and I like them, so here they are.

At the temple on a snowy evening. We had quite an
adventure that night, but that's a different story.
Forgive my scary demon eyes.
 But look, I have a (real) ring!
Close-ups to follow.  

My soon-to-be husband, the piper

The getting of the ring was a crazy, long, and mostly frustrating process. But after two months, it is finally upon my digit! Joe custom designed it, with my preferences in mind and a little bit of inspiration from a ring I tried at Zales, and I LOVE it. Love it love it love it. 

Top view. Sigh. Love it.

Side! I love the details.

And that's it! We are getting married in less than two weeks. Plans are coming together nicely, and it's almost done. I'm almost married! Let the official countdown begin.

P.S. In case you're wondering, we have this nice, classy "wed-site" that includes more stuff about us, like pictures, our falling in love story, and also our registries {hint hint. haha. joke.} It is creatively titled taraya-joe.nearlyweds.com. So if you have a thing for stalking people's love lives {don't worry, I'm one of you}, I heartily encourage you to go there and bask in our cuteness.