*Engagement photos are by my friend Danni of Apple Ridge Photography (@appleridgephotography). She's such a talent and makes you feel so comfortable! Grayson even had fun!
Location: White Top Mountain
Regular text is written by me, bold text is written by Grayson.
Little did I know, it was all going to start with an Instagram post of a special pimento cheese Chick-fil-a sandwich.. lol. Grayson and I have a thing for pimento cheese on our burgers, and when he saw that a few select locations in North Carolina were serving this piece of cheesey chicken gold, we knew we had to make a road trip. I decided to ask our friends Eric and Sam to come along so we could make a fun day of it in Asheville.
I was in Alabama for two weeks for work and knew the ring would be ready about the time I came back home. We had talked about going to Asheville for the Chick-fil-a pimento cheese sandwich and I thought about doing it that weekend. I talked to her friend Sam about it and she told me about the Omni Grove Park Inn and how the scenery there would be perfect. So after her sending pictures and doing some convincing I decided I would propose there before dinner.
After got our sandwich, which we all pray gets added to the menu for good 😂, the rest of the day's plan was to shop around before dinner at The Grove Park Inn. Since we were going to be there all day, we wore comfortable clothes and brought a nicer outfit to change into for dinner. I hadn't been to The Grove Park Inn before, but I knew Sam and Eric love it there, so I didn't think anything about it!
After we got the sandwich we decided to go check out downtown Asheville. I had never been and wanted to go to some breweries, especially Catawba - they had a limited Watermelon beer I really wanted to try (it was so good, I got a growler to take back home). The beers really kept my mind off what was going on later lol. After that we went to a few different shops and walked around downtown Asheville. We walked around and browsed for a few hours then we went to a Mexican restaurant and had a tequila flight and small meal to eat and hold us over for dinner. It was around that point I started to get nervous and it was all sort of hitting me.
Next stop after Mexican was The Grove Park Inn. Grayson was complaining of his stomach hurting and was asking for Tums. Sam said she was in the back seat giggling to herself because she knew it wasn't just the tequila and too much chips + guac that was hurting him. We ran into Starbucks to everyone could change into their dinner clothes, and get this.. Grayson even picked out my outfit. Before we left the house I couldn't decide what I wanted to wear, so asked him to pick for me. Had no clue at the time how perfect that was for him 😂
We got to the Omni Grove Park Inn and there was a ton of people. I was expecting there to be very few people based off pictures and talking to Sam. Got there and it was crowded. I didn't think I would go through with it. We walked around the outside area for about fifteen minutes taking pictures in all sorts of different places, but it was about impossible. Then off on the other side of the park someone else proposed so I about called it quits there because I just assumed everyone was going to be proposing. But we kept walking around to different places and I knew I just had to do it. I had thought in my head hundreds of times how it would go, but I knew it probably wouldn't go as planned.
Sam is used to taking photos for me, so I wasn't tipped off by her telling us to move spots so many times because the one we were in "wasn't pretty enough" haha. Eric showed me these bunnies munching on grass to the side, which distracted me enough for Sam to pass the ring off to Grayson. (She had it in her purse most of the day!) Not sure if that was the plan, but it was very convenient, lol. At one point, I put my arm around Grayson and could feel his heart beating hard. But, we had just walked up and down a lot of stairs, and I was slightly winded myself, so I was still clueless! So then, we're standing there looking at the sunset and he's like "Do you think the sunset will be this pretty when we build our house at the lake?" And I'm like oh yessss for sure. Then he tells me how he can't wait to build our house, and do life with me, and wake up to me every morning, and then he says "and I can't wait any longer." And he turns and gets down on his knee.
So we eventually got around to a decent area with a good view and not many people around. I finally just got the nerve to put my arm around her and look at the sunset on the mountains and asked if our sunset at our lake house would look this good. I told her I couldn't wait to wake up beside her everyday, go to bed with her every night and just spend every day together. And then I whispered in her ear that I couldn't wait any longer.
Everything is a blurrrrr after that. All I remember is that I truly thought I was dreaming and would wake up any time. Once I realized it was real life, I tried telling myself to focus and listen to what he was saying because no one ever remembers their proposal. Well.. it didn't work. I just kept saying "really?! REALLY?! ARE YOU SERIOUS!??! really??". And I remember at one point he told me he couldn't wait to wake up to me every night and we giggled about that and I was like - it's the same thing! Also, when he pulled out the ring box, I briefly glanced at it but told myself it doesn't matter what the ring looks like and to focus on Grayson. Then I looked again and saw it was the one that I wanted so bad and kinda shrieked inside, hehe.
Next thing I know, once I said yes, everyone was cheering and clapping for us, which was a pretty neat feeling. My face hurt from smiling so much and being in COMPLETE shock. Looking back, SO many things make sense about the whole process, but everyone was so good at hiding it from me! I texted and face timed all my important people, then put my phone away so I could soak it all in. Samantha had champagne for us at the dinner table once we got there, and then I lived on cloud 9 for a good 3-4 weeks after, haha.
