Getting Engaged

Hey Guys!

So if you've read some of my other posts I'm sure you've figured out by now that I am engaged! Yay! My fiancé proposed to me on November 4th, 2021! At the time we had been together for 4 years at the time that I am writing this we're coming up on being together for 5 years! We've been engaged for 7 months now and yes we are currently planning our wedding! By the time we get married we will have been engaged for a little less than a year and a half. We actually just started planning the wedding in April. It took us a little bit to find a venue. We had one that we both really liked but they some very interesting rules that we didn't really agree with. We were going to get married at this cottage on the property of a resort and they had this requirement that you had to rent out all 13 guest rooms inside the cottage and you could rent them out to your guests and the rates of the guest rooms were like $600. They said you get a discount but even with a 20% discount we felt we could not ask the members of our wedding party to pay those kind of prices for rooms that might not even hold their whole family. 

So far we have settled on a Disney Wedding and currently our contract is being drawn up. The Disney process is kind of weird and intense at the same time. We did get our dream location and we are both very excited. We are also very lucky that my parents are paying for the wedding portion and his parents are paying for the rehearsal dinner, which will be at the Rainforest Cafe in Disney Springs. It seems kind of cheesy but it's a total classic and we are very excited. Also, it's not technically inside the restaurant, it's actually in their Lava Lounge which is they outside deck and bar that is right on the water and I think it will be absolutely beautiful and a lot of fun. It will also be perfect for those that want to go out afterwards and have a drink or two or do some shopping at some of the stores. 

Anyways, the point of this post is to talk about the engagement. I will be doing more posts on the wedding as time goes on. So to start off my fiancé took a trip home to Cape Coral for both my birthday and his birthday last year. I wasn't really expecting him to propose because to be honest, he's had my engagement ring since July of 2019 and he's come home many times before this trip. Also, we were already celebrating so many different things all at once so I just kind of figured there was no way he was going to propose. Even though he said he kept dropping hints and he said I should have seen it coming. To list the things we were already celebrating, my birthday was first, then Halloween was two days later, and then his birthday was little over a week later. We did have a trip to Universal planned but we had been talking about wanting to go back for a while because we hadn't been since my 24th birthday and I turned 28 last year. 

If you can see where I'm going with this, yes, he proposed to me at Universal. Well technically at one of Universals Resorts. When we were planning this trip we decided that we wanted to splurge little since it was only one night and we stayed at Loews Royal Pacific. The resort was very nice and once we checked in we wished we were staying more than one night. We left for Orlando after I got off from work on Thursday November 4th, 2021 and we drove to Orlando. We were doing so great the whole drive until it came to getting to the hotel. Our GPS actually routed us to the employee entrance and I am terrible at maps and figuring out where to go so we ended up getting into a huge fight because I couldn't figure it out and he was driving so he couldn't really look at the map either. He was also being very stubborn and refused to pull over or read any signs, I think this was mostly because he was getting really anxious. He also accidentally drove the whole way which we didn't mean to happen but we ended up taking another road than we were used to and it was really dark and we didn't feel comfortable pulling over to change drivers.

Anyways, we're both very upset with each other and he just kept saying can we just not fight tonight, tonight of all nights and I being blonde didn't think anything of it and I was like no I'm very upset with you and I just wanted to be mad so I wasn't really speaking to him. We got checked in and went to our room and didn't really speak the whole time. He laid down on the bed and took off his sweatshirt that he had been wearing and all I remember thinking to myself was wow he is extremely sweaty, I have never seen him this sweaty before. Needless to say everything didn't really click until after he proposed. But basically he was really nervous and that's why he was so sweaty. Anyways we had dinner reservations that he had to get to so we decided to get ready to go, he showered, and I got dressed in a cute outfit so we could go out to dinner at 9:30. 

Since our hotel was right on property and our dinner reservations were at City Walk we could just walk along a path to get to dinner, which is exactly what we did. We were walking along the path and we still had time some time before our reservations so he wanted to pull off to this little beach area and look at some planes they had across the water. Now if you know me at all, you know I hate the beach! So I was a little hesitant at first and kind of complained but I figured I would just walk very carefully and if I got sand in my shoes we still had enough of a walk to walk the sand out of my shoes. I walked out onto the beach and looked across the water at the planes and noticed that he was standing a little bit behind me and my fiancé loves to scare me, like all of the time. It's just something he enjoys doing so I wasn't going to fall for it and pulled him up besides. Well little did I know he was trying to pull out the ring box from his pocket and I kind of ruined that for him but at the same time he kind ruined it for himself lol. He's right beside me now and is finally able to pull the box out of his pocket and he got down on one knee and popped the question! Yay and I said Yes of course! 

Once we got done kissing and hugging and being all giddy we continued on our walk to dinner and we decided to stop and call my parents to let them know and then my sister as well! They were all very shocked and happy for us. They knew I had been waiting a while for this moment! Then we took a photo and shared it with some friends and family on snapchat. We didn't call his parents because they actually already knew since we had been staying with them for about a week at this point and his mom was actually the one holding the ring for him. We finally got to City Walk where we still had a little bit of time to hangout before we could check in for our reservation so we went down by the water and talked a little bit and took a few photos together to remember the night! 

Then we went to check in for our dinner and we enjoyed a very delicious meal at Bigfire! Everything was delicious and we each had a drink to celebrate and unfortunately we were too stuffed for dessert but they have Tableside S'mores listed on the menu that I really wanted to try. We had never been to this restaurant before so we didn't know how large their proportions are. If we had known we probably would have just shared a meal so we could have tried the dessert as well. We said that we would go back some day on one of the anniversaries of getting engaged and enjoy the Tableside S'mores. By the time dinner was done, we went back to our hotel room to sleep as we were getting up early the next morning so we could hit up both Universal and Islands of Adventure in the same day! We had a very busy and long day ahead of us and we need all of the rest we could get!

The next day we woke up to a very rainy day. We actually knew that it was going to be raining the whole day but we still had high hopes that it wouldn't actually happen since the weather in Florida is so unpredictable. However, we were very wrong and it did indeed rain the whole day. I don't really remember why but I was the only one that remembered to pack a rain jacket and so we had to buy my fiancé a poncho. He wanted me to wear one too but I said nope I'm good! lol Honestly the rainy day couldn't have been more perfect. We both love rainy days and the rain actually kept the crowds to a minimum. At times it basically felt like we had the park to ourselves, it was great! We got there around 7:30 and the park opened at 8 but they let us in a little bit early. We walked around and checked out some stores at first and then we pretty much did all of Islands of Adventure before 11 am and so we took the Harry Potter Hogwarts Express over to Universal and enjoyed some lunch and then we rode pretty much every ride over there by like 2 pm. We then headed back over to Island of Adventure on the Hogwarts Express because you have to take it both directions! Then we rode a couple more rides and we left the park by 4 pm to hit the road back home. 

Even though we weren't at Disney we had a very magical day and we both agreed that it couldn't have been more perfect! We were able to check out the new Velocicoaster which we both thought we wouldn't be able to ride due to the wait times but we waited maybe 20 minutes the first time and maybe like 30 the second time. We were also able to ride Hagrid's Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure and only waited maybe 30 minutes. We weren't able to ride the Hulk due to the weather but they pretty much seem to always close the Hulk whenever rains. We also weren't able to ride Rip Ride Rockit but I also said I wouldn't be going on that one because it gives me such bad anxiety! While we were at the park, we spent the day slowly sharing the exciting news with our friends and family members via texts and snapchats! Overall, it was a wonderful engagement trip and we got to return home as an engaged couple and tell all of our friends and family!

I hope you enjoyed reading about our engagement! I can't wait to marry my best friend and spend the rest of our lives together! 

 Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph