The Proposal

Gabriel:

Now there’s supposed to be a ring. But how am I suppose to pick out the right ring for this girl if she wants it to be a total surprise and she doesn’t want to tell me what she likes? It seems like an impossible, lose-lose situation! Finally, I was able to figure out what she really wanted from the ring; for it to be a timeless treasure from me to her that I liked for her.

As far as the proposal, the plan was never to “fool her” completely, I knew that probably wasn’t possible. I mean, I did say I wanted to marry a very smart and perceptive girl which means that’s highly unlikely. The goal then was just to keep as many elements as possible a surprise in terms of the “how”, not necessarily “when” etc.

So the morning of. I wake up at ~5-6 am, an hour or two before my alarm clock, as apparently my body has been doing to me in the last couple months for no good reason… I spent the morning checking in on plans and making sure things were still on. I even ran an “errand” to print out pictures of us so it could be pinned up for a photo backdrop wall.

It wasn’t until the end of dinner and especially the ride back to her house that the gravity and weight of the scenario started to hit more. I felt the ring in my small coin pocket on my jeans, I had been holding onto it since the moment we left for dinner. I knew we wouldn’t have time to get in on the way back. I could feel it all throughout dinner. I rehearsed the speech in my head I had prepared and ran through the plan a couple more times.

By the time I held her hand and led her in front of the beautiful backdrop decorations, the moment was full strength intensity, so much so that I said things out of reflex at certain points that I didn’t remember saying until after.

And one of the main reasons she was in the dark about so many of the details was because of the huge amount of help I received from so many (especially her sisters and parents). Since the more stuff I wasn’t involved in, the more she didn’t know about it.

It was awesome having so many of our friends and family there to witness, celebrate, and pray with us. I wouldn’t change any of it.

Evelyn:

That Saturday morning, the only things I knew for sure were that I would see Gabe at 11am, we are suppose to have lunch with my family, and my dad is having a celebration in the evening with his brothers.

Right before Gabe arrived, I got caught up in reparking cars and prepping food that I was still getting ready when he arrived. I was feeling so bad that I was running around getting ready while he was helping out my family get ready for the dinner. And OH the sheer amount of food that was being prepared! I mean, I know we Russians eat quite a bit but this was so much!

Now, I knew that Gabe was planning on proposing sometime soon and I was “to be ready” any day, but I thought since the day didn’t seem to have any big event or anything, I could for one day wear everyday clothes.

He came at 11am with beautiful sunflowers in hand, but I wasn’t totally ready yet!

When we finally left my house, Gabe had been working on the house deep-cleaning and food prep for an hour and we were off to his house. As we pull up to Gabe’s, there is actually wedding prep in progress for someone else in Gabe’s beautiful backyard! With this excitement in mind, we went in to try and focus on our “State of the Union” time, as we lovingly call it. Where we take every description of love from 1 Corinthians 13 and see how the other person did or did not exemplify this characteristic throughout the week.

As I was writing things down and discussing things from my point of view, Gabe gets a call to let him know that something is ready and he tells me he needs to go run “an errand”. He seemed to be making more and more of those “errand” runs, but I said nothing. I wanted so much for everything to be a surprise that I tried really hard not to ask questions, not to think about things, and purposefully keep myself as much in the dark as possible.

When he got back, he started doing the “State of the Union” from his perspective and right in the middle of all this, I get a call from my mom. She tells me that she made reservations at a riverside cafe for 3:45pm and that meant Gabe and I should be heading back to the house so that I could get dressed up nice to go to the fancy lunch. Though I knew it was odd for people to ask me to change before a meal, I also knew that Gabe would make sure I looked nice for the proposal so I let Gabe know what my mom said and without any hesitation we were on our way back to my house. There was not even a moment to finish up our time of going over 1 Corinthians 13 or anything.

Getting home, there seemed to be a hectic and hurried atmosphere looming over the air. Everyone was in a rush and telling me a should wear all different types of dresses and get my hair done, but at the same time everyone was telling me there was no time to do anything!! Oh the rush!! Finally, Gabe just told me “put on the black and white dress because (from previous dates) we know it works well in pictures”. That’s it. That’s what I did.

At lunch, when I was asking about the logistics of the evening, my dad stated that no one was able to make it and that unfortunately the dinner would have to be moved to another day. But all the food was ready so after lunch we were going back home to have ice-cream and later plov for dinner.

While driving back to my house, my parents were doing such a wonderful job about talking of possible evening plans and how we could all go to one event or maybe to another friend’s house. Just as we turned into the street, I saw lines of white cars… familiar white cars… it was happening… it was happened now!

We pulled into the drive way, and I saw some family members arriving at the gate. “Oh, I guess someone could make it today”, my dad said to try and divert what the event would be about. Then, I saw it….the trail of roses at the edge of the walkway… but I still thought no one else was there and it was just us and an extended family.

Walking up to the path of rose petals, I was already shaking. As I crossed the edge of the house, to the beginning of the path, I saw everyone… So many people who have had such a big impact on us and our walk with the Lord together… I was so overwhelmed, so overjoyed, I was shaking and now also I could not contain my laughter of joy.

That was when Gabe lovingly led me towards the beautiful display of roses and all I could remember was feeling incredible, unbelievably blessed to be standing along-side him. I could not thank God enough for bringing us together and, so when he asked ‘The Question’ I can say that I am beyond privileged to have said “YES, I WILL!”

We:

So over 500 hours down and a lifetime to go