We were set up on a semi-blind date by our fabulous matron of honor and best man who joined us on our first date. The first time we met we shook hands and I [Collin] sat in the front seat of the car, while she sat in the back; we did not talk much on the ride to the now closed Mi Cocina. Food was bad, drinks were worse. Mallory did not get a drink because she was 19 [I thought she was 21; huge lie]. We ended up all hanging out until ~2 a.m. in my parents demolished, post-flood house. She sat on the uninstalled toilet in the middle of my room while we talked. At the end of the night I gave her my number so that she would be forced to text me if she wanted to stay in touch, or she could never talk to me again. Ultimately, she texted the next day... and we've talked every day since!

The day that I picked up Mal's ring, I came home to a full house of people; one of whom was my Godchild, Lola. As I'm showing off the ring to everyone, Lola did not say a word. After everyone saw the ring, I told Mom that I was going to hide the ring in her bathroom until I came up with a proposal plan. A couple weeks later Mal and I were at Mom's with Lola. Mallory was about to leave for the day and before she could go Lola says, "I have a great idea! Lets show Mallory her ring!!!" I'm clearly freaking out at this point and trying to recover in any way possible, but Lola clarifies with: "The ring in Maw Maw's bathroom! You said it was perfect!" At this point she has completely ruined it. Mal knew I had the ring, but I still had no proposal plan. Since the cat was out of the bag, I knew that I needed to go ahead and make a plan. I decided that since Lola was involved in spilling the beans, she would be involved in the proposal. We set up a jewelry shop at Lola's play store a week before the proposal. We gave her all sorts of jewelry with price tags attached to play with throughout the week, but we didn't tell her the plan for Mal's ring. Mom made a tag for the ring that said "Aunt Mal" and stuck it in with all the other jewelry in Lola's shop. That Sunday morning Mal and I went to breakfast and came home to hang with Lola. The plan was for Lola to ask Mallory to play store and then Mal organically come across her ring. Well... Lola did NOT want to play this particular day, which NEVER happens. After about an hour of behind the scenes convincing, Lola was finally told of the plan and decided to ask Mal to play. She tells Mal "I have one ring to show you" and proceeds to show her the ring. BUT... Mallory could not have it because she still had to buy it from the "store." Lola then proceeds to show off the other jewelry in her store instead of just giving the ring. Eventually Mal checks out and is able to finally have her ring. Mal says she knew the whole time.