In April Jon made the trek up to Wheaton to ask for Jim’s blessing to marry Katie. However, being the loving boyfriend that he was, he waited until the school year started back up to go through with his plan. (Why, you ask? Well, Katie made a STUPID comment about how it would be exciting to get engaged during the school year to share it with her students…. even though she took it back the moment it came out of her mouth, Jon respectfully followed Katie’s wishes.)
The new school year brought mixed blessings for Katie as it was a great place to work, but it still had its difficulties. Heading into October, Katie asked Jon, “I know it’s Tuesday and it’s probably not going to work, but can we get away this weekend?” Jon took the opportunity to get away with his girlfriend because she had NEVER asked to take a weekend before. Together, they decided to head up to Breckenridge in the mountains. They made plans to go up, have dinner with some friends who were up there for a different reason, and then have a nice relaxing weekend.
Arriving in Breckinridge on Friday, October 2,2009, they checked into their hotel room and found out it was a top floor, mountain view studio. It was SUPER nice. Katie thought to herself, “This would be a nice place for Jon to propose.” She quickly got rid of the idea because SHE had asked to go away three days before and figured there was NO way Jon would come up with something in that short of time. Together, they went out to dinner with their friends and had a wonderful time. Afterwards, Jon wanted to go for a walk around the town. Even though it was late and things were closed and it was freezing cold, he insisted. They had a nice time, but Katie was cold and kept things moving.
When they finally got back to the hotel room, there was a great sigh of relief for Katie because it was finally warm! Before she could even get her coat off, she stopped dead in her tracks and GASPED! There were rose peddles spread all over the bed and a gift box at the head of the bed. Katie’s mind was RACING! “Oh my gosh, there are roses on the bed! Are we in the wrong room? How did he do this? Did he get the staff to do this? Did they do this in the wrong room? This is happening, he’s proposing! No, can’t be… that’s not a ring box…. why would he put a ring in a gift box….. ” the whole time afraid to turn around in case it was a mistake. Finally, Jon disrupted her racing thoughts with a gentle, “Katie, don’t you want to open your gift?”
Katie slowly made her way to the bed and got the gift. It was wrapped with wrapping paper and everything (Jon barely puts tissue paper in gift bags). She slowly opened the paper as to not destroy the wonderful wrapping job that Jon did. As she opened the box, she saw it was a custom made picture frame from Jon. Katie got so excited that it was the picture frame (the story behind it is long… but important- trust us!). “Aw, this is awesome! Jon really knows how much this picture frame means to me. He went through all this to give it to me!! He’s not proposing, but that’s ok because this is great,” Katie thought to herself as her heart calmed down a bit. When she turned over the frame to look at the front, she GASPED again (and probably stopped breathing!) Inside the frame was a picture of a ring in the box! “Holy CRAP! That’s a ring, that’s MY ring… where is the ring? Oh my! He’s proposing, he’s really proposing,” Katie’s mind raced again.
Jon held her arms, looked deep into her eyes, and said some wonderful, kind, loving, perfect words. He got down on one knee, opened the ring, and asked, “Katie, will you marry me?” Jon barely had time to finish asking the question before Katie said, “YES!” and hugged him tight! After some hugs and kisses, and a few tears, Jon placed the ring on Katie’s finger and the deal was sealed!!
So how did he do it?? Jon had been planning for a very long time how, when, and what he wanted to do. He had been making the picture frame during the day while Katie was at work, putting it away, vacuuming the floor, and putting the vacuum EXACTLY where it was when she saw it last so she wouldn’t catch on to anything (Jon doesn’t vacuum much… so it was REALLY important). He also had been researching rings, diamonds, cuts, colors, etc. for weeks narrowing down the PERFECT ring to buy Katie. Once he had everything pieced together, the final step was to have his friend Josh help him get it all set up. Unfortunately, the weekend Jon wanted to propose Josh was going out of town and it was not where Jon had been planning to go (he has yet to expose that information— he’s saving it for later!). That same week, Katie had asked to go away and Jon thought, “This is perfect!! It is meant to happen this weekend. I’m going to have to find someone else to help me though.” Little did they know, Josh was also going to Breckinridge which is why they went to dinner with him. Jon drove the flower petals and gift box to Josh during the day on Friday. Then, during dinner, Jon gave Josh the key and map to the hotel. Jon and Katie HAD to go for their walk to give Josh time to set everything up in the hotel room!
The whole event was PERFECT and it was totally worth waiting for!
