On this day 13 years ago, my husband proposed to me.
It was a marriage proposal like no other because, well, it happened to me, and it was the only one I ever needed!
Here is the story of that day. The day that intertwined our lives for good and built the foundation for a rock solid marriage.
Back Story
So, we had been going out for about a year and a half officially. Before then we were sort of having a casual fling for a year ever since we met. We were living together at the time and had recently returned from an incredible 3 month holiday during my uni break. That holiday was pretty wild as we drove around in his old campervan and did a lot of free camping.
It was certainly an experience and it really gave us a great base for a super strong relationship as we had to plan and plot, be organised, be problem solvers, and both enjoy the same kind of things to be able to have a successful trip.
Actually one part of the trip where we went up a river in a canoe for 5 days wasn’t quite so successful as we forgot to test out our cooking equipment before we left and ended up with a gas bottle and stove that were incompatible with each other which meant a lot of raw noodles and cold tinned soup!
But that hardship only served to bring us even closer together!
Marriage Goals
We had discussed getting married and had certainly set some long term goals together.
We both knew that we wanted to have kids one day in the far future but our priority was both the same – to travel widely while we could. We were realistic about the fact that as soon as we had commitments, we would not find it so easy to travel so we made it our number one goal: To finish uni, to earn a little pile of money and to dedicate our lives to travel.
Part of this involved getting married.
We knew we would get married, we knew we were made for each other so when we talked about it, it was always a given. We had even looked at rings and I dropped plenty of hints about wanting to have his name before I applied for my first passport.
So when it actually happened, it wasn’t much of a shock but it was a nice surprise!
The Actual Proposal
I had a regular long-ish day at uni and came home to our bedroom in a 
large house we shared with 5 other people to find his old camcorder lying on the bed amidst a scattering of rose petals with a note attached to it.
All the tiredness I was previously feeling from my day immediately dissipated.
“Watch this” the post-it ordered. It was one of those old video cameras with the little screen that flipped out so I pressed play and saw Brian sitting in front of the camera and giving me some funny instructions. I knew what was happening straight away!
And I giggled out loud and blushed all over with excitement.
This was it!
The instructions were to go and hop in my car and drive to the nearest bus stop. Look under the seat.
Under the seat was a folded up piece of paper shaped like a heart with glitter raining down like pixie dust as I opened up and more instructions to go to the roundabout around the corner and look for the next clue.
That lead me again to a picnic table on the foreshore, then a garden bed in front of a bar with clues finally telling me to head to the beach.
This beach was the scene of many of our former dalliances and it was where he taught me to windsurf so it was a special spot to us.
As I arrived at the beach I could see his car and on the windscreen was another little note that ordered me to walk north along the beach.
So I did.
It was sunset and there wasn’t anyone else around and I could see Brian in the distance standing on the beach with a massive grin on his face.
I ran up to him and saw him in a circle of candles (luckily it wasn’t windy) with a box in his hand.
I was breathless and weak at the knees as he dropped to his knee and took my hands in his. Looking deep into my eyes he asked me to marry him. I 
burst into tears and said YES of course!
He picked me up and spun me around and planted a kiss on my lips and a ring on my finger and that was it, we were engaged.
And the rest, as they say, is history!
12 years later we are still as blissfully happy as that day on the beach.
And he still takes my breath away.
We haven’t got here without working at it and I am forever grateful to my husband for teaching me so much about myself so that together we have been able to grow and evolve within our relationship.
Find lots of pointers on how to keep the spark alive in your marriage with some simple romantic ideas or some healthy relationship tips.
Care to share the story of your marriage proposal?
Love,
