Shortly after starting his new job, Sean began putting in long hours at the office. I knew how hard he was working however I didn’t necessarily realize exactly for what reason. Sean began planning the engagement from the moment he got his job and plans started to come together about a month before he would ask the love of his life to marry him. Sean told me how well he was doing at work and convinced me that he had to travel to Louisiana for a weekend of training; however he was really planning on driving to Atlanta to ask my dad for his blessing to marry me instead. Within a couple of weeks of his trip, Sean ran into many obstacles that would cause him to alter his plans on a daily basis. He often left work early to scope out various beaches and restaurants in order to find that perfect spot to ask the most important question of his life. After many failed attempts Sean finally found the ideal spot, Little Harbor. The beach was beautiful, secluded, and it had the most amazing restaurant on the beach to host our engagement dinner afterwards.
Sean realized that everyone that needed to be involved with the proposal had conflicting schedules and the only date that would work would be the Saturday of his planned Atlanta weekend. This meant he had to drive to Atlanta after work on Thursday evening and leave the following night to make it back for work on Saturday at 9am (in Tampa!). Sean’s only intentions for this extremely brief trip to Georgia were to have dinner with an unsuspecting future father-in-law. Sean had been coordinating with my brother Brooks for weeks to ensure everything went according plan since the window of opportunity was exceptionally narrow to surprise my dad.
Now I was still oblivious to everything going and on that Thursday, I wished him a safe trip to “Louisiana.” He coordinated real flight schedules, layovers, and time zones. The night he left for “Louisiana,” he drove to Atlanta. He would pull over numerous times on the side of the road to tell me he landed and arrived at his hotel. Sean arrived at Emily’s house, my best friend, around 1am Friday morning, who did not know why he was driving up. Sean decided to surprise Emily and her other friend Nikki with the good news.
The next day Sean drove across North Atlanta to visit my old college of Kennesaw State University and one of our favorite destinations, Chateau Elan, to gather gifts for me. Later that night Sean surprised my dad, Steve, and asked him if he could marry his daughter. Steve was so happy and so ecstatic that I had found a good man in Sean, one who respected both him and me enough to drive all the way to Atlanta for one day to ask a single question. After dinner Sean began his seven hour drive back home and arrived home at 3am only to have to turn around and go to work at 9am that same morning.
Meanwhile, I had planned to go out to dinner with my friends, Kim and Jincy, at Little Harbor that Saturday night. When Saturday rolled around, I was really missing Sean and wishing he was home. While I was pulling into the parking lot, I received a text from Kim saying she and Jincy were already there and had walked far down the beach. Being that I was 10 minutes early (which never happens), I was confused on how they were already there and managed to walk so far already. I was more concerned though and a bit irritated at the fact I had on heels and a nice dress, clearly not the ideal beach outfit. What were Kim and Jincy thinking? While I walked and walked to meet my friends, I finally could see them way down the beach and became more irritated that they weren’t walking fast enough to meet me!
As I walked a little further, I saw a guy walk down towards the beach that looked a lot like Sean. I thought to myself, “Okay you are seriously losing your mind, that is NOT Sean!” But he kept walking towards me and I realized that it really WAS Sean! What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he in Louisiana? Why was he hiding? So many questions ran through my confused mind as he got closer. Little did I know that he had a question for me.
Sean got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I was so overwhelmed and shocked with what was going on that I didn’t even answer and just threw my arms around Sean! He had to say, “So, I take that as a ‘yes’?” And that is when I came to, screamed “YES!” and jumped back into Sean’s arms!
Friends and a few family members were watching from various locations as well hiding in the bushes to take pictures to capture that great moment!
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