Shayne and I met in June 2014 on my very first day of work at a welcome lunch for new hires. I remember this lunch vividly. I sat diagonally from Shayne who had just finished his first year of work, and I knew that day I needed to know this guy. Over the next few months, the flirting began. While we rarely worked directly with each other, we ran into each other often in the cafeteria. A few months go by and I was working on a company project with one of Shayne’s friends in IT. Before I knew it, Shayne was somehow getting involved in the project. I later found out this was all a setup and his friend pulled him into the meetings in hopes of him asking me out. (Spoiler: it worked)
A handful of dates later fit in between grad school for me and some very important work softball and basketball leagues (championships) for Shayne, we finally made things official in March 2016. The next three years were filled with so much love and adventure. We traveled to London, Paris, Niagara Falls, Florida, the Bahamas, Banff National Park, multiple cities across Canada, and many many weekend day trips across New England. April 2018 we invited a new furry member of the family, Oliver, and bought a house later that year. I could not have asked for a better partner in crime to spend my life with.
We had recently planned a trip to Aruba to celebrate 3 years together. I knew this was going to be another amazing trip of adventures and relaxing on the beach. Shayne also knew it was going to be amazing but for so much more than that. He had planned this proposal down to every detail. He thought of everything; hired a photographer to capture the special moment well before we had left and even left a note in his carry on in case security had to search his bag that said: “Please search carefully as there is a SURPRISE engagement ring in this bag!”.
We had spent our first long full day on the beach and he knew he had the photographer planned to be meeting us at 5:30 before dinner so he somehow had to get me off the beach and ready well before that. In typical Jess fashion, I made that VERY difficult. I was “parking my butt’ on that beach until at least 5 pm. With a lot of convincing, Shayne finally got me to head back to the room to get ready for dinner so we could “explore” beforehand. 5 o’clock rolls around and we make our way back out to the beach to take a walk before we head to dinner.
Next thing I know, I see a photographer show up. Shayne tells me we were just going to take some nice pictures on the beach. I didn’t even think twice about it since his brother and sister in law had done the same thing on a trip in Jamaica. It wasn’t until he was down on one knee saying, “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.” that I knew it was happening. After all the tears, I finally screamed YES! We spent the next three days with smiles from ear to ear and couldn’t wait to get home and share the news with all of our loved ones! It was, and forever will be, one of the best days of our lives.
This was a bittersweet day for us because while we still got legally married, there were so many people we wished we could have celebrated with. Pushing our wedding celebrations out a year was the hardest decision because we wanted to spend this day celebrating with our friends & family but our number 1 priority was everyone's health and safety. We decided on a small "minimony" with immediate family to officially become husband and wife on our original wedding date. With that, we cannot wait to have a proper celebration (and still the church wedding that I always dreamed of!) with everyone in September. Thank you so much for your understanding and support through all of this!