We're Getting Married!

We met working together at our first job at 16-years-old. You could say that it wasn't love at first sight. But that didn't stop a powerful friendship from flourishing. Danielle: "Trey was notorious for picking on me at work. I actually got him into trouble a couple of times. It was no secret that he was not my favorite person!" Trey: "Danielle was the new hot girl that I kept calling "BB". So she told the manager on me!” Both of us were young & naive to the fact that we would fall in love 5 years later! Danielle: "At first, when we were so young, we weren't super close. It was more of a "Hey, do you want to cover my shift?" type of friendship” Trey: "Honestly, I just thought she was hot. At 16 there was only one thing on my mind... A cute girl to play scrabble with. HA!” Danielle: "Trey ended up moving to Chicago for about a year. We didn't talk much then. But he messaged me out of the blue right before he moved back to town, which was what kicked off the beginning of our friendship" Trey: "We instant messaged here & there when I moved away. I knew she liked me & I liked her more than just friends by now & thought it could be more than a friendship” Danielle: "We were friends for MONTHS before we made it official. Friendship felt so easy with him" Trey: "Once I moved back Danielle played hard to get for a while. We spent almost every day together, but she was adamant about us being just friends. Which worked for me at the time because I was falling in love with her. I would’ve taken all the time I could get” As our friendship grew stronger, we dove deeper into falling in love with one another until we realized we were spending more time together than apart & made it official on April 1st, 2013. And just like that - we are engaged after 8 years of loving, adventuring, & growing with each other. What we have learned is that loving is not always easy. But that always doing it TOGETHER makes everything worth it. We couldn't have imagined it happening any other way. Xo

It was our 6th anniversary and we had decided to spend it just the two of us. I had arrived home later than anticipated from trying to gather supplies to pull off an anniversary gift idea. As I pulled up to the house, Trey was standing in the garage, in his peacoat, all dressed up. He looked nervous. I got out of the car, told him not to look, and ran inside to try and put together what I was able to gather. I finished, but Trey could tell I was upset that I wasn't able to pull it off as I expected. He looked at me and reminded me that it was our anniversary, that it was okay, and that he just wanted to spend time together. We shared a hug and a kiss, and I got dressed. Before we left, we exchanged gifts and found that both he and I had made dinner reservations and bought movie tickets online. We shared a laugh and decided on where we would go. If you know Trey you know that he is a big talker. But, while at dinner, he seemed so uncomfortable (talk about dead giveaways!!!). I think I asked him if he was okay, like, over a hundred times! After dinner, we had some time to kill before the movie. Trey took me to the park, where we walked and talked. Trey was walking SO slow! After a bit of walking, Trey waited for a distraction to catch my eye (he actually pointed said something like, "oh look over there, they're having a bonfire" (': ) and as I looked away he stepped in front of me and kneeled onto one knee. I have never seen him so nervous in my life! I could not stop smiling. After a minute, he was so nervous, that he then lifted himself off of his knee before actually proposing that we get married! We started walking again and I smiled and asked, "Well, are you going to ask me?" He blushed, looked at me, and asked, "Will you marry me?" And I SAID YES! We are so excited to share this long-awaited, VERY special day with all of our friends and family! XoXo

It was now or never. I knew & started telling close family & friends of my intentions months before. If it wasn't for them telling me to quit being a girl I'd still be dating my best friend. The day was filled with sweaty palms & shaky knees. All I could think about was that I still had to ask Danielle's dad, Robb. HOW?! I like to think I know Robb fairly well, so on my way to ask him I knew I couldn't show up empty-handed. In comes McAlisters Deli to help me through. A couple of sandwiches later & a false tale about me coming over for a plumbing question, I'm face to face with Robb pretending to hear his explanation about the pipes. I finally broke a nervous silence & told him why I was really there. After a heartfelt, scary, do the right thing, I'm happy for you two, speech, I had to wait for Danielle to get home. WHICH TOOK FOREVER! I had the nice digs on, car cleaned, movie tickets bought, a reservation made, & a ring in my pocket. It was go time! You know how some proposals go as planned? Mine did not! It was going to be a nice dinner followed by a river walk & a magical proposal. It somehow ended up even better! We had the nice dinner with good food & a few drinks (OK-maybe it was more than a few), & ended up taking a walk in the park. We started walking & talking about how we were jealous of a couple having a fire a few houses down. I don't remember how many times I told her to look at that fire, but it had to of been getting weird! I just needed to buy time to reach into what seemed to be the deepest coat pocket. She caught me halfway into my pocket & getting onto my knee. The look on her face! I expressed my love with such excitement that I popped up, kissed & hugged her, & began to walk again when she reminded me that I NEVER ASKED! At this point, it seemed easy. Will you marry me?! With a profound "YES!" & much excitement, there was only one thing left for us to do...Skip the movie, grab some ice-cream, & show off that bling to mama Cooling!