Glad your back to reminisce with me! Last week I shared with you how my love and I met, if you missed it, you can read it here. So if you remember TJ and I experience some challenging times when I was attending Shenandoah University and getting my BA while both of us were working full time but throughout it all we survived and it made us stronger. My graduation from SU was Saturday, May 12th and I couldn’t have been more excited to have finally achieved a childhood dream of mine (who would have thought I would have continued to get my Master’s….silly me!)

The morning of Saturday, May 12th was filled with many emotions. It was a sense of accomplishment of all the hard work from the previous 2 year, fear of what next, and excitement and joy of how proud of myself I was. We were up early to attend an award ceremony at 9, line-up for graduation at 12, and the ceremony began at 1:45. After graduation everyone came back to our house to celebrate and have fun.

Everyone began to show up and share their excitement of my accomplishment and as I greeted everyone I realized that some were starting to leave so there was never any down time. My mom kept everything in order, ensuring food was out and all the guests were happy, TJ and my dad cooked on the grill and I greeted and thanked guests for coming. The downfall of our planning was that I had set up our dining room table with my awards and diploma and that is where everyone chatted with me so I never made it to the backyard at all during the celebration (which is where the guests and party was). I was so busy and sidetracked that I didn’t even have a plate of food (and everyone knows I don’t pass up meals).

Throughout the evening TJ made many attempts to get me to come to the backyard and failed each and every time. It made for a long day with lots of emotions and I was physically drained at the end of the evening. As our last guests were hanging out I finally made myself a plate of food (at like 10 p.m.). After a while our guests all went home and I went to put my pajamas on when TJ asked me to go to the back yard with him for a second so he could give me my graduation gift. I had no idea what he was doing and why he wouldn’t just let me go to bed because I was exhausted, but I am glad I listened and went outside.

TJ led me to the back yard and sat me down in front of a “Congrats Grad” sign with tiki torches around. He handed me a card which reflected me perfectly. The card read: “Graduating from college has been a longtime goal for you, and it has taken many sacrifices to finally reach this day. To achieve this goal, you had to balance the demands of real life with your hopes for the future. I admire you so much, because I know how long you’ve juggled work and school and all the other parts of your life. I also know there have been times when you wondered where you would get the strength to go on…but you always did. Your determination makes your graduation all the more worth celebrating. You should be very proud of yourself.

Congratulations I love you!”

Inside the card was a letter that TJ himself wrote:

“Franzi.

Congratulations baby. I just want you to know how proud I am of you. I know it hasn’t been easy at all, I remember you telling me just how tough it was going to be when you first started towards your Bachelors. And you were right… I underestimated how hard it was going to be. Real quick I found out how much time commuting, going to SU and doing homework would take from our time together. It might be selfish of me but I wanted college to disappear so we could have our time back.

I knew how important this degree was to you though so I just kept supporting you and trying to keep you motivated. After all, you were making the majority of the sacrifices and it’s to better our future.

I remember the night that we were standing outside at my mom’s house on 619 and you were stressing. You looked at me and said that you need 100% support from me and that we couldn’t risk any major life changes until you get this degree behind you. It would be too much to try to handle the stress of a house, marriage, a dog or baby on top of struggling with college. Well baby, we broke the rules and bought a house, bikes and a dog while you were juggling everything else but somehow you weathered the storm and managed to graduate with honors. Like the lady at your graduation said, if I believe in signs at all, I think how perfect this day is, certainly has to be a sign of how perfect you are for me and how right today is…

Truth is, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time…I’ve known since the day I laid eyes on you that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.

Well babe, school is over now…open the envelope please”

Then there was another envelope with a piece of paper in it that said, “Marry Me???”

By this point TJ had begun the song “Marry Me” by Train on his phone and was down on one knee with a black velvet jewelry box in his hand. He opened the box and barely got out, “Will you marry me?”

I couldn’t believe my eyes or my ears. I couldn’t believe that someone, anyone, especially TJ wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. How was I so deserving of such a wonderful man? All of my dreams were coming true and all in the matter of one day! I was so shocked I even asked him if he was sure? Did he really want to spend the rest of his life with me? And he answered, yes, of course!

So….I said YES! TJ took the ring from the box and placed the ring on my finger (after asking if he was putting it on the correct hand), kissed the ring on my finger, and gave me a huge hug. “Marry Me” continued to play on his phone and we danced together under the stars in our backyard with dreams of a beautiful life together.

As I write this and read over the card & letter that TJ gave me I tear up. His proposal wasn’t in Paris on the Eifle tower or announced on a scoreboard but it was perfect and everything I wanted it to be. I couldn’t have asked for a better or more personal proposal.

So I am sure you’re wondering….what did the ring look like. Check out these ring shots I took…what do you think?! Isn’t he the greatest? I am so sorry ladies, he is taken but he has 2 brothers! Next week I will start to share the planning process and how our beautiful wedding came together!