4. The ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!

Occasionally I would look online and see which rings I liked and always emailed Tyler the pictures with a brief message, “FYI- I like this ring!”

I sent him another picture earlier that summer when he proposed and didn’t think anything of it. Of course all the pictures I sent him were from Tiffany & Co. I didn’t know where else to look and he knew I was fine with the ring not being from Tiffany & Co. Maybe on our 20th anniversary?!

He got my ring from Shane Co and with his mom’s help. Because we were in college, we didn’t really have any money saved up so his mom paid for the ring. That was really sweet of her to do that! This was why I was so shocked and did not expect him to propose because I knew we didn’t have money for a ring yet.

We bought his ring at Shane Co a few months before the wedding. He wanted a simple white gold ring and we found one that he liked and was within our budget.

But he lost his ring at the lake about 6 months after the wedding.

We never found it and unfortunately we didn’t have our rings covered at the time. So a year later for our anniversary we had money saved up to buy him a new ring. We both actually like his new ring better than the one he originally had.

P.S. Missa Lee and I were trying to take pictures of our rings during lunch and who knew taking a picture of the ring is so hard? Thanks a lot, Missa Lee, for posting a crappy picture of me.

3. Proposal: how it happened, how long you were engaged for, was it a total surprise? pictures of that….etc.

We both were living in New York and Tyler had just graduated and I still had 1 more year left to go. At the beginning of the summer we both went home to see our families. After 4 weeks at home I came back to NY because I had signed up for summer classes so I could graduate on time. Tyler stayed home for a few more weeks.

The night before Tyler came back to New York, we were both online and a few days earlier, I sent him a surprise through email with 100 reasons why I love him. So that night, he sent me an email back with 100 reasons why he loves me. He was slow at responding my IMs and I automatically assumed it was because he was busy with his family and packing. Little did I know that he was on the phone with my parents to ask my dad for my hand in marriage.

Tyler’s flight was not coming in until around 11 that evening so I hung out with my roommate at our apartment until it was time to go pick him up. My mom was texting me constantly asking me when I was going to the airport, if I was already there, to tell Tyler hi and to ask if I was by myself or if my roommate was going with me. I thought it was a bit weird since it takes a while for Mom to text me back and why does she care about all the small details!? I ignored it and just answered all her questions.

So I left for the airport and I remember it was raining. As I was parking in the garage, my mom was still asking me more questions “It’s raining? Be careful!” and “Has Tyler arrived yet?”

I was so excited to see Tyler so I kind of ignored my mom’s text messages at this point as I walked into the airport.

I was at the security checkpoint gate waiting for Tyler to arrive. We hugged and kissed and walked together to the baggage claim area. I kind of noticed that he was quiet but I didn’t think much of it though because I knew it was late and he was probably tired.

We got 1 of his bags and as we were waiting for the other bag he seemed to be so focused on finding his bag. Then I saw a duffel bag come out and only caught “Steph V” on it and I immediately thought how cool it was that this bag belonged to another girl here with the same name as me and I looked around to see who this “girl” was then looked back at Tyler to find him on his knees.

Right there it clicked in my head that the bag was Tyler’s. He asked me to marry him and of course the first thing I said was, “are you serious?” over and over and he assured me that he was serious! So obviously I said YES!

As we were walking out to the car, I texted my mom to tell her the news and then realized that was why my mom was texting me like crazy because my family knew. I was definitely surprised and had no idea what he was up to!

We got engaged on July 14, 2007 and got married on November 24, 2008 so we were engaged for 14 months. 14 months was the perfect amount of time for us since we started planning our wedding quickly after the engagement while I was finishing college.

2. When you knew he was the one: self explanatory..but how and when did you know?

It’s not like a movie where I knew one day. It was something that happened over time. During one summer in high school, Tyler came to stay with me for 4 weeks. We had so much fun together and after his visit, I realized that there was not one single time where we both got sick of each other. So from there I started seeing him in my future.

The fact that we survived our long distance relationship during the last 2 years of high school was a huge thing. We knew that we wouldn’t be putting ourselves through this if we didn’t see each other in our future.

Also another moment was when we were talking about going to college together. Throughout college we learned how to be with each other after being in a long distance relationship then we lived together with some friends during our last few years of college. It was a great learning experience for both of us. I love having “what if” conversations so of course Tyler and I talked about our future together a lot.

We’re good at expressing our feelings and thoughts to each other so it was no surprise to us and everyone else that he was the one for me and I was the one for him. We were even being asked all the time when we were going to get engaged!

So technically I think I knew Tyler was the one for a long time but I didn’t really think about it at the time because I was so comfortable with him and we both were happy with our relationship!