Weddingbee Blog

Let me start by telling you that I’m pretty sure I had Mr. Balloons a wee bit scared about proposing. First of all, he’s heard me rant about numerous disaster proposal stories that happened to some of my coworkers and friends. I mean, seriously, one girl’s fiance proposed to her at Outback Steakhouse while they were in the middle of a huge fight! Umm, no thanks. Secondly, I told him that if he ever proposed to me before I graduated college, I’d say no. Wow, that kinda sounds harsh now that I look back on it…but I didn’t mean for it to seem that way, I promise! I just wanted to have fun planning the wedding and enjoy it and not have to stress about school and studying at the same time. Plus I wanted to have a good, steady job so that we could afford to have a nice wedding and not have to stress about the cost so much.

Wellllll, guess what? Mr. Confident ended up proposing to me before I graduated anyway! Granted, I was in my last semester, but still—talk about brave. Hehe.

This is a picture he took of me right before he proposed in Hawaii.

OK, so, rewinding a bit. We planned a trip to Maui, Hawaii with three of our good friends. One night before our trip, before Mr. Balloons got home from work, I got this overwhelming gut feeling that he was buying a ring. I had absolutely no reason to think so…he wasn’t acting weird, and we had never talked about marriage much and definitely never about getting engaged. I brushed the thought off, telling myself that it was crazy thinking. The next day, I got the same gut feeling. I feel like I tend to have pretty good gut instincts and so, while he was gone, I got in his truck to see if there was a ring in there since it’s the one place I could see him hiding something. (Hey, don’t judge me! I had this feeling that was driving me nuts, so I had to check.) Anyway, I didn’t find a ring so AGAIN, I brushed it off and told myself that I was just crazy thinking.

So it finally came time for our trip, and we had to stay the night at a hotel in Chicago before flying out the next day. Lying in bed in our hotel room, out of nowhere that same nagging gut feeling came back again! I had to say it…I blurted out to him in the middle of trying to fall asleep, “You’re not going to propose to me, are you?” OMG, I thought, I cannot believe I just said that! Props to my fiance, as he played it totally cool. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he was completely convincing that I was indeed just thinking like a crazy person. I told myself that I don’t even know why I was thinking it in the first place. From then on, I believed that my gut instinct was wrong this time, and I moved on and didn’t give it another thought. He had to have been going crazy inside, though!

With our friends Jeeping on a beach in Maui

Anywho, so the second day that we were in Hawaii we were out on the beach at sunset taking some pictures, and we decided to go take some out on these awesome lava-rock formations that jutted out into the ocean. It was absolutely gorgeous out there! So there we were snapping away taking pictures, when he gave me a great big hug. I could feel his heart pounding against his chest so fast, and that’s when he got down on one knee and said some really sweet things and pulled out the ring! I was shocked! Even after those feelings that I’d had those few days, I was still completely surprised!

Right after he proposed to me at sunset

I feel bad for Mr. Balloons because it took me a good 15 minutes to say yes. I was just so shocked and worried that we couldn’t afford a wedding and that I wouldn’t be a good wife. I mean, I barely know how to cook, etc. So there we were sitting out by the ocean in Hawaii at a beautiful sunset, and we talked about how the wedding didn’t have to be right away and how he loved me no matter what. He reassured me that I would be a good wife and I finally said YES. Oh my poor, poor fiance—what I put him through! He did such an amazing job with the proposal and staying calm through everything! So even though it didn’t go completely as he planned, I’m sure…it was still PERFECT to me and I LOVED it. So there you have it—our proposal story!

Yay! We’re engaged!

Oh, one more side note from our Hawaii proposal trip: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT ever ever ever sleep in your contacts! The night that Mr. Balloons proposed to me, we went out to a local bar to celebrate and of course we ended up a little tipsy…OK, a lot tipsy. I wish we had a video of our walk back to the hotel that night! He had to carry me back, even though he wasn’t really sober enough to do so…so needless to say, I got dropped a few times (aaand I was wearing a dress, mind you), along with having my head shut in an elevator door!

A few shots in…celebrating the proposal!

So anyway, when we got back to the hotel, I lay down in bed without taking out my contacts. BIG MISTAKE. I’m not sure if sand had gotten under my contact or what, but I woke up about 2 AM or so with the worst pain in my eye. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the eyeball! No joke, worst pain I’ve EVER felt. I pried the contact out of my eyeball, but it didn’t stop the pain. Mr. Balloons ended up having to take me to the emergency room. (Which, by the way, took almost an hour to get to. Apparently people in Hawaii don’t get sick or hurt because no one at the three different gas stations we stopped at could give us directions to the hospital!)

So there we were driving to the hospital in the Jeep we rented with the top down as I’m screaming in pain…we finally got to the hospital, where the doctor put in some numbing drops and gave me some pain pills and a pirate patch. Turns out, I ripped off the entire top layer of my cornea…eeek! I had to wear the pirate patch the rest of the trip, couldn’t go snorkeling that day as we had planned, and was blind out of that eye for about a month after. (Oh yeah, and there was also a crazy-expensive hospital bill involved in the aftermath.) Moral of the story: I will NEVER take my vision for granted EVER again and will NEVER sleep in my contacts ever again!!!

One too many mai tais may have contributed to my eye injury…

Arrrrgh! Me as a pirate after my eye injury

Anyone else have an interesting proposal story?