The Proposal

On Thursday, July 12 at about 7:30pm Jon dropped to one knee in St. Paul, Minnesota overlooking the Mississippi River, told Nicole how much he loved her, and asked her to be his wife!!! If you want all the juicy details from Nicole's perspective, keep reading...

I spent the entire week in Minnesota visiting my little brother and catching up with college friends, and Jon joined me on Thursday morning so we could attend my good friend Erin's wedding on Friday evening. He arrived Thursday morning and after a nice lunch with Anna, I forced him to stop by "Wedding Day Diamonds" where Tonia, a good friend, is the manager, not knowing that he already had an engagement ring for me in his pocket!!! After that, we headed to the Crowne Plaza Riverfront hotel where we were staying for the next two nights, and on the way I said, "You don't already have a ring do you?" but with his sunglasses on and me driving, I couldn't determine the true answer!

Before heading to dinner with my little brother and his girlfriend, Meghan, at Loring Pasta Bar in Dinky Town, Jon suggested we take a walk by the river, unfortunately, we couldn't find an easy way to get down to the river and the scenery was a busy road and big bridge, until I spotted a fountain and some pretty flowers and we strolled in that direction. Jon and I stood chatting, and he said, "Well, you showed me what kind of ring you want, are you going to tell me how you want to be proposed to? I said not in front of family or a bunch of people not on a holiday, just a Tuesday morning or something...I said I was confident he knew what to do.

Then Jon whips out of his pocket the "Bling Bling Diamond Ring", which was a gift from his friend Andy that he had brought home for me about a month ago. I hadn't liked the styrofoam ring that is supposed to expand in water packaged in bright pink plastic too much, and it had just left it on the kitchen counter. It wasn't good enough! I kiddingly punched Jon and asked him why he brought that all the way from Michigan. Jon said he brought it to practice the proposal. I still hadn't quite caught on, and finally asked him if he wanted me to put the stupid ring on. Jon said, "No, I want you to put this on." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the most beautiful, perfect diamond engagement ring, dropped to one knee, told me how much he loves me, and asked me to marry him. I was shaking and crying, and as he stood to put the ring on my finger, he still hadn't heard my quiet "Yes!", so I had to repeat it.

We smiled and hugged and chatted a few minutes longer, and then turned back to walk to the car and head to dinner. A nice looking man with his cute red-headed and pregnant wife approached me and said, "Maam, may I take your picture?" and I said, "Yes! We just got engaged!". His wife said, "We know and we took pictures of the whole thing!" Basically, this kind stranger captured our engagement from across the beautiful fountain in about 30 pictures, and then took some great still shots afterward. He had already written down his website for us and everything! If you want to see all of the pictures (they are in reverse order) visit "Ryan's" website at http://www.thestahlhouse.com/ It would be great if you left kind comments and let him know how much this means to us, our friends, and our family.

It was so wonderful to be able to share my excitement with my brother and best friends in person. I called my parents first, and Mom screamed unlike I've ever heard before. Apparently, she was so excited for us that she didn't sleep at all Thursday night, however, Dad said he was so relieved he slept like a log. I was predicting that Jon might propose to me earlier this summer during our Beaver Island vacation, but when that didn't happen, I was sure it wasn't going to happen until after we made it out to Seattle. I'm very proud of him for keeping it a secret and actually surprising me!

The ring is palladium (silver in color) and just over 1 carat with a beautiful, sparkly, deep round cut center diamond, and two small round diamonds embedded on each side. Between the small diamonds Jon included a pattern of custom engraving, sort of modern flowers, and the edges of the band are millgrain. A description could never do it justice. It's the perfect ring for me. It's modern but classic. I will never take it off!