Here is our engagement story if you want a little glimpse into the kind of "story" I am talking about.
If any
of you know me at all, you know that I like plans. I like calendars and knowing
what is happening hour by hour. The trick was I also wanted to be surprised
when Ben asked me to marry him. Surprising an “I need to know the schedule”
person can be a real trick, yet it was clearly a trick Ben was up for!
For those of you who do not know,
Ben is living in Arkansas, and I am living in St. Charles, IL. That is about 9
hours apart. If he was going to surprise me and travel 9 hours, then that was
going to be challenging. There were a few weekends that I thought he was maybe
going to ask, and I would tell a few friends “maybe it’ll happen this weekend.”
However, those times passed and he did not ask. So it was well into October and
the rest of my weekends were booked in St. Charles until the middle of
November. On one of those weekends, I was going up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
with our high school youth group for the Fall Retreat. I was, at the time,
working in high school ministry at our church and had done a lot of planning
for the retreat, so I was going to be very focused, busy, and unable to talk to
Ben much.
Saturday we arrived in Lake Geneva
and were having a blast. It was a beautiful fall weekend in one of the most
adorable towns in the area. That evening we were finishing up a session, and I
was hanging around with a few leaders when the youth pastor Sterling came in.
He said “Hey Paige, some kid fell by the cabins. Could you run to the dinning
hall and get some ice?” I said, “Sure, Alexandra (another leader) and I can go.”
Sterling quickly replied, “Actually I need Alexandra for something else.” So I
started walking and on my way another leader, Alli, stopped me. Alli asked
where I was going and if she could come along.
Of course, I said yes! I was not about to walk to the dining hall alone
in the dark. I had talked to Alli before
about when I thought a proposal might happen, so as we were walking I said
“Alli, I know this is not healthy, but what if Ben is here and this ice thing
is just a way to get me to him? I know that isn’t true and I shouldn’t think
that way.” Alli being so sweet and not knowing what was about to happen said,
“You don’t think Ben would propose in the dining hall do you?!” I said, “No
way.” (Also you should know that I was wearing a pumpkin turtleneck, and Alli
was wearing an apple turtleneck. It was the right thing to wear on a fall
retreat.)
We walked a little further and off
to the left there was a gazebo with beautiful white lights and BEN! I gasped
and said, “No!” because I could not believe he was actually there. I would later find out that this freaked Ben
out! When he got down on one knee, though, I started saying, “Yes!” I was
totally surprised. Ben had already asked permission for me to go out to
breakfast with him the next day, and he had planned with my parents to come
back to our house Sunday night. It was such a dream come true. Literally.
Of course our story goes much further than just the engagement. But again. Who am I to get to be a part of such a great story?
