We're Engaged!

After we we had been together for about six months, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Nate. He was everything I had ever looked for in a partner. He makes me laugh (which my mom tells me is key to the perfect marriage). He knows everything about me and somehow manages to love me anyhow. He even likes my rabbits. Clearly, this is the man for me.

One thing you need to know about Nate is that he works at his own pace. He can't be hurried into making decisions on what he would like for dinner, let alone something as big as matrimony. (It's actually perfect for me to be with a man like this because he forces me to slow down and breathe once in a while.)

As soon as the "M" word entered the picture (and yep, I was the one who brought it up), I knew I wanted an engagement ring from Trein's Jewelry in Dixon. My dad has purchased many items from their store for my mom over the years and I've always found their work to be of exceptionally high quality and their pieces to be downright stunning. Nate and I visited Trein's almost two years ago and I found THE RING. I knew from the moment I slipped it on that it was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life seeing on my left hand. The ring would stay at Trein's for quite a while, though.

Like I said, Nate moves at his own pace. Perfect opportunities for proposing came and went - birthdays, anniversaries, New Year's Eves, Christmases, a cruise to the Caribbean. It had gotten to the point where I forced myself to stop thinking, "Maybe this is it!"

In November of 2012, Nate announced he had plans for us on December 22 - and no, he wasn't going to tell me what they were. Now, if you know me, you know that it drove me crazy to not know what was going on.

On December 22, we checked into the Millennium Knickerbocker on Chicago's Gold Coast. We spent the afternoon walking around downtown and enjoying our awesome hotel room. I still wasn't sure what the plans were for the evening at this point. All I knew was that I needed to be in a dress and ready to go at 6 p.m.

At 6 p.m., we went to the fourteenth floor of the hotel and checked in for what turned out to be a murder mystery dinner. There would be three "murders" throughout the evening and each of us would be a suspect. We could pick from the available aliases (I stuck a name tag that read "Jimmy Stewart" - my favorite actor - on Nate) or create our own. I decided I would be "Duchess Kate" for the evening (hey, a girl can dream, right?).

I had never been to a murder mystery dinner before. If you haven't, what you need to know is that the "detectives" pull people out of the audience to interrogate and find out if they could be the murderer. About halfway through the dinner, they announced they wanted to speak with Duchess Kate. They grabbed a chair and pulled it to the center of the ballroom. I sat down and they started interrogating me with rapid-fire questions. They then told me that their lie detector device was broken and they would need someone to back up my story. I told them that my boyfriend was here and could vouch for everything I said.

They pulled Nate into the center of the room and he told them I was telling the truth. They then asked Nate if he had any questions for me. He said, "I just have one question." He then dropped to one knee, pulled the ring out of his pocket, and said, "Laura Kuhn, would you do me the honor of being my wife?"

Nate down on one knee 

I immediately said "Yes!" And then, perhaps because I couldn't believe I was finally getting the ring of my dreams, I didn't even give him a chance to slip it on my finger. I grabbed it out of his hand, slid it on my finger, and jumped up to embrace him. 

Embracing my brand-new fiance - please note that my chair was right next 

to a tape outline of the "body" from the first murder! 

I couldn't stop shaking. I couldn't believe that my dream was coming true. I stood there, holding him, while we got a round of applause from the entire ballroom. 

After we sat back down, the people at our table offered to take a picture of the brand-new engaged couple. I love it!

It turned out that Nate had actually been working with the actors in advance on his plan. He had disappeared a few times since we got to the dinner and had been finalizing the details with the detectives. We had lots of people ask us if the proposal was part of the show, another "diversion." Nope, we told them, this was the real deal. 

The proposal was perfect. I knew when Nate got around to popping the question, it wouldn't be over a candlelit dinner with the ring in a glass of champagne. That's not his style. He always keeps me on my toes and the engagement was no exception. It was perfect. 

Oh, and here's the ring of my dreams!

Thank you, Trein's! And thank you, Nate!

We're engaged and ready to start planning our wedding. I hope you'll join us for our journey! 

Who Are These People?

The two of us back in the day

Our love story began like so many have before us - in a video store (remember those?). I was a junior in high school and my best friend worked with Nate at Dollar Video. Teenagers tend to spend a lot of time hanging out where their friends work, and I was no exception. It was during one of those visits that I first met my friend's tall, handsome coworker. His name was Nate. He had great eyes and a smile that made me melt every time I saw it (and it still does).

In a display of teenage overconfidence, I began asking him out. Repeatedly. He eventually either started reciprocating my interest or just got tired of me begging him to take me on a date. We went out a few times, but a relationship never materialized. He went off to college - he's three years older than I am - and we lost touch.

Fast-forward 13 years. Now, instead of hanging out in video stores, people were connecting on Facebook. I saw a humorous post that he had made on a friend's wall and decided to "friend" him myself. He accepted and we started chatting a lot on Facebook. We decided to meet up in our hometown over Thanksgiving weekend.

Our first date was at Zero's Tap in Dixon (doesn't that sound a place where romances bloom?). Meeting for a drink turned into talking for hours and playing a few rounds of darts. His sister and her fiance joined us there that night as well - and I'm still convinced that he asked them to come along because he was afraid I was going to have turned into a weirdo.

That first date led to another one the following week. I was living in Woodridge and he was finishing up his master's degree in University Park, so we started seeing each other frequently. About two months after our first date, he had a friend send me a message on Facebook that said "Do you like Nate? Circle yes or no." Apparently we had aged physically, but we still took our relationship cues from high school. Shortly after that, he asked me to be his girlfriend. Of course I said yes!

We spent the first two and a half years of our relationship putting a lot of miles on our cars. Nate was working in Dixon and one of us was driving 180 miles round-trip every weekend. That's a pretty good indicator of how nuts we are about each other, gas prices being what they are!

We finally took the big step of moving in together in June of 2012. Luckily, the joy of having more time to spend together outweighed the fact that there were two adults and three rabbits living in a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs.

So there you have it. It took me 13 years, but I finally landed the guy I had a major crush on in high school. Good (amazing!) things really do come to those who wait.