Wedding Blog

This story is actually a combination romantic vacation/engagement story, because by the end of it we were engaged!

It was October of last year. Jeff was attending a university down in St. Louis (about 200 miles from my university) for the semester, while I stayed behind at the University we both attend, and he’d attended previously. We had been talking about camping almost since we got together but had never gotten around to it.

The whole semester that Jeff was studying in St. Louis, he would come visit me every single weekend, often making the four-hour drive after he got off work at 10 each evening. We would usually spend the weekends doing normal “couple-y” things, despite the dearth of entertainment in my small college town.

That weekend Jeff told me to keep the entire weekend free of plans, which was slightly unusual. I’d sort of had an inkling that we might go camping, but didn’t expect much of it. Well, he arrived in town as usual and quickly spirited me away from my dorm. I saw that the backseat was full of camping gear, coolers, and such, so (not being a complete idiot) I figured out what he was up to…or so I thought!

We got to the campground (it was in a state park just a few miles outside my college town) and I helped Jeff unload the car. Neither of us had gone camping as grown-ups before (i.e. tried to do things like pitch a tent, start a fire, etc.) so of course it took us longer than it probably should have. In fact, by the time we had gotten it all straightened out, it was pretty close to dark. Since it was late October in northern Missouri, it was also COLD. I wasn’t really prepared for camping, and had only worn jeans and a hoodie (not the worst attire ever, admittedly). Jeff had thought to bring me a spare jacket and blanket to cover up with.

We were sitting by the fire (which, of course, took two hours and a stack of newspapers to start!) and Jeff kept bringing out more and more surprises…he was so thoughtful and brought all of my favorite foods–even those that weren’t typical “camping” foods! I’m a vegetarian; he brought a package of tofu “hot dogs.” I absolutely adore ketchup and love to cover all my food in it; he brought an economy-sized bottle. He even knew (from a conversation we’d had a couple months back) that I like my s’mores with Reese’s peanut butter cups instead of Hershey bars–he brought me peanut butter cups! We had a jumbo-sized package of Twizzlers, and my favorite sodas.

The best food surprise, though, was the ring of cocktail shrimp! If there’s one food I love, it’s cocktail shrimp. Jeff hates them, hates the sight and thought of them. Yet he brought me a jumbo-sized ring of them to eat by the campfire! In short, Jeff took it upon himself to plan the perfect, stress-free and worry-free weekend for me–much needed after how horrible the past few weeks had been for me (my younger brother died of suicide on October 4th and I’d missed two weeks of school for the funeral and other family arrangements–all of which Jeff stood by me through).

That night we sat by the campfire, feasting on cocktail shrimp, tofu “hot dogs” for me and real hot dogs for him, and Schlafly’s pale ale (my favorite microbrew). It continued to get colder out, though, and I was soon talking of retreating to my warm bed at the University. Even Jeff, the human space heater, was complaining of the cold–so much so that after sitting by the fire for a few minutes he retreated to the tent saying he needed to get a pair of gloves (I’d never known him to wear gloves before).

A moment later he came back; I was still sitting close to the fire (and melting the soles of my tennis shoes inadvertantly). Jeff walked up to me and said, “I couldn’t find any gloves, but I did find this.” (He got down on one knee) “You know I like to do things right.” (he pulled out a purple leather jewelry box) “Will you marry me?” (he opened the box, revealing my stunning engagement ring).

I, of course, began to hyperventilate and completely freak out with happiness. I started to cry as he placed the ring on my finger, and then I said, “I can barely even see it it’s so dark!” Believe it or not, Jeff had thought of that too: he brought a big camping flashlight, and I spent the rest of the night shining the flashlight on my new ring, crying, and giggling.

The big proposal behind us, Jeff had one more surprise in store: he pulled out a special cooler he’d hidden in his car, and produced a bottle of champagne and two glasses–he really had thought of everything! We toasted to our engagement and spent the rest of the weekend happily camping and hiking.

Jeff had been planning the weekend for the entire previous week; he said he’d made lists of things to bring, called the jewelry store twice to make sure my ring would be ready on time, and done everything he could to make sure the weekend was stress-free and happy for me. I couldn’t have been more surprised and thrilled with his love and kindness and consideration, and it really showed me how much he loves me :).

Thanks for taking the time to read this–hope it’s not too long!

Katie