The Proposal

On Sunday, September 6th, the man of my dreams asked me to be his wife! Joe and I have been dating for a little over 5 months but knew we wanted to spend the rest our lives together after only a few weeks. Many of you have been asking about the propsal story, so here it goes...

We had planned on spending the day in Ventura, on the beach, on Saturday. However, not knowing what his true agenda was, I suggested we wait as I wasn't feeling great and didn't really want to make the drive. Poor guy!! So, we ended up heading out there on Sunday. We went to church Sunday morning and he played it totally cool, even though the ring was already in the car. His original intention was to go to our favorite french restaurant, 71 Palm, but it was closed on Sundays. I know...it was all my fault! So, I suggested we go to a really good Italian restaurant that I love, called Spasso's. So we enjoyed a wonderful brunch on their outside patio. After we finished eating, Joe asked the waitress to take our picture. She cleared off the table and made it look nice and then proceded to take our picture. Joe then asked he to take another. As she got ready to take the 2nd picture, he said "oh...wait one second...(he pulled out the ring and said...) Erica, will you marry me?" The waitress captured the moment on camera and was so excited for us. It took me quite awhile to recover from the shock! To the point that Joe said, "Honey, you haven't answered me..." Opps! I said "yes" :-) The waitress then brought us out champaign and the owner of the restaurant brought us out a gift card so that we could return for a complementary meal. They were wonderful! Once I could walk again, we headed to the beach to just enjoy one another and to make phone calls to our family.

After a few moments on the beach, we headed home and off to evening service at church. At the end of the service, Pastor Steve asked Joe if he had anything to announce. :-) So, Joe stood up and announced our engagement. It was the perfect end to the perfect day!!