I knew he was thinking of proposing eventually, but had been trying not to ask too many questions and ruining any surprises he might be thinking. (One of the things I'm still learning is how to be patient when I'm excited, so this was definitely a challenge, but it worked!)
It was almost the week of his birthday and it was going to be a busy one. One of us had something going on almost every night that week so we decided that we were going to have to celebrate on the Saturday before. He told me he was trying to think of something special for us to do, but the night before we still hadn't come up with anything so we decided to go on a drive around downtown Raleigh to see if we could find some place for dinner.
We were specifically looking for a place with a patio, and preferably somewhere new. We drove around for at least an hour and then finally drove past Wye Hill Kitchen, which has a great patio right next to the Boylan Street Bridge (my favorite view of downtown) and neither of us had been since it opened last year. Check and check! Bobby made our reservation as I drove home.
The next day we were both so excited we left way too early and decided to take the long way and stop by the Raleigh Rose Garden first, which is one of our favorite Raleigh spots.
At almost 6:45 we finally parked near the restaurant, and began the walk across the bridge to get there. Again, this is my favorite view of Raleigh and it's pretty hard for me not to stop and stare. Bobby asked if I wanted my picture taken, which I laughed at because it was his birthday and I should be taking pictures of him, but he said he had seen a cute photo trick he wanted to try. He asked me to turn to look out towards the city, and then he would call my name and I would turn around quickly for a "candid" photo. It seemed silly but it was his birthday so I obliged.
I looked over the bridge. He called my name. I turned around. He was one one knee... aaaaand here it all becomes a little blurry from tears of joy and so much confusion. I was so surprised I was hardly able to form sentences but I could definitely still say "YES!!"
From across the street and at the restaurant patio there were people cheering as he slipped a beautiful ring that he custom designed with his grandmother’s diamond onto my finger.
Turns out Bobby wasn't done with his surprise: the strangers across the street were my sister, Beverly, and my best friend, Carlee, who had been hiding in a bush taking pictures this whole time. The cheering crowd on the patio at Wye Hill included my parents, my brother-in-law, Brian, and my sister, Tracy, excited to celebrate with us. Bobby had made this reservation weeks in advance, asked my parents for their blessing weeks in advance, and had even driven all the way to visit his parents and pick up the ring two days before without me having a clue!
By the time I was able to wrap my mind around everything that had happened in the span of 5 minutes, they all began to share stories of the different parts they played in this surprise, like tricking me into getting my nails done, secretly driving to town, and hiding in a bush, which Bobby knew would make it even more special to me.
I think I'm pretty hard to surprise, but somehow Bobby always blows me away with the creative and thoughtful things he does to make me smile - even on his birthday.
What a year 2020 was! Luckily for me, I have some memories to hang on to from 2020 that weren't tainted by this giant mess of a year. Very early in 2020, I knew that I was going to ask Jasmine to marry me. I even told a few close friends that I was going to propose before the year ended! I just needed to figure out how to get a ring, get Jasmine to get her nails done (for pictures), and craft some master surprise to make sure she would be excited to say yes!
My lovely grandmother (I call her Granny) has told me all my life that she has a ring she's saved for me in case I want to use it to propose. It came from her father, who became somewhat of a collector of diamonds soon after the Great Depression, and the one she'd been saving for me was the last diamond he gifted to his loved one. I went and visited Granny in the summer to see the ring and immediately knew the stone was perfect! But I wanted the setting it was in to be unique and special for Jasmine, so after I picked it up, I took it to a trusted, family-operated jewelry store in my hometown of Jacksonville.
It was there that the ring stayed for the latter half of the year. You see, Jazz and I had a handful of conversations throughout the year about her tastes in rings, and thank God we did! I actually mistook something she said early on to mean that she preferred a more unique engagement ring with something other than a diamond. For a while I was making plans for a ring featuring a non-diamond. But after a few more conversations, I felt like I had a really solid understanding of what she liked in design, stone, and setting, and communicated that as best as I could to the jeweler.
It's now October, ring is in the shop being customized exactly the way I want it, but it's almost finished and I still need to finalize my surprise proposal plans. It's time to call in the big guns - the sisters. Tracy and Beverly were both integral parts of this operation (as they are with many of the big moments in Jasmine's life) and I'm so thankful for my relationship with them. They helped develop an elaborate scheme to take an unsuspecting Jasmine to get her nails done, but I should really let Beverly tell that story.
I knew I wanted to propose on Boylan Street Bridge, and have loved ones waiting inside a nearby restaurant to surprise Jazz. There was one weekend in November where everyone was available, including Jasmine's best friend Carlee, who came to Raleigh just to surprise her for this. This weekend happened to be close to my birthday, which gave me the perfect cover story. I made reservations, and hinted to Jasmine that I wanted to go out on a birthday date somewhere downtown that Saturday.
On Thursday I travelled to Jacksonville and back to retrieve the finished ring, all under the guise of a trip to the DMV with a very long line. On Friday, we drove around downtown looking for a date spot for the next night (even though I already had reservations at Wye Hill). This way, everything seemed completely spontaneous and Jazz would have no suspicions that anything else would happen. When Saturday finally came, I realized that I should have planned for everything to happen during lunch or even breakfast, because I was so excited and anxious all day long. In fact, we even left for dinner way too early, and had to detour to the Raleigh Rose Garden to stall time so Jazz wouldn't see people she knew arriving at the restaurant.
But the time had finally come. We parked on the opposite side of the bridge from the restaurant so we could walk and enjoy the Raleigh skyline (although I was practically skipping at this point and just trying to hide it). Beverly and Carlee and I had pre-arranged a specific photo spot so they could take candid photos without tipping Jasmine off. They too, however, were very excited and arrived way too early, which lead to the two of them hiding in a bush near the bridge for close to an hour! But finally, all the waiting came to an end.
I told Jasmine that I wanted to take a picture of her on the bridge, but to make it spontaneous she needed to look out towards the sky and not turn around until I called her name. While she was looking away, I got down on one knee, grabbed the ring from my pocket, and called her name. The look on her face when she turned around made all the planning totally worth it! After she said yes, Beverly and Carlee started cheering for us, then everyone waiting for us on the restaurant's nearby patio started cheering as well. I yelled out "SHE SAID YES" at the top of my lungs, and we spent the rest of the evening celebrating with family and explaining to Jasmine all of the things that had been going on for months to lead to this very effective surprise.