Ready for the longest, but sweetest story?
Holy moly I have pretty much just had the best 10 days of my life (starting May 15th)!! My week started off with me thinking I had one week left at my full time job because I am going FULL TIME PHOTOGRAPHER! I have been at the coffee shop for 4 years and I have built my photography business from those connections so it has a special place in my heart. The community and staff and our owners have been the most supportive from the get go of my photography endeavor and I couldn’t thank them enough for all they have done. OK, I digress. I thought I had one week left there, and was excited and nervous. I thought going full time freelancer was going to be my big life change to start my thirties on an exciting journey. Boy was I wrong, ha. Lindsey asked to hang out in SF and do a MOMA/city living shoot for a brand she’s working with, so I went into the city after my shift and was kind of tired and didn’t really want to go, but I did. We spent a few hours together and she happened to have plans to meet her friend right near where our Monday soccer game was. What a coincidence, huh? Not really. It was all part of the plan (!!) And how she played it so cool when we were together, I don't know. Major props to you Linds!
We split ways and I head to soccer. Sean and I are on the same team and play the 50 minutes. I am oblivious to the team always passing the ball to him so he can try and score goals. Again, part of the plan! Post game, Sean says “let’s huddle up”. Uh sure, we don’t typically do that but okay. He starts telling the team how he really enjoys playing every Monday, it’s how we met, etc etc, and I’m standing there thinking “he’s feeling really sentimental,” but again, still oblivious to his plan. Next thing I know he’s saying he wants to play soccer with me for the rest of his life, getting down on one knee and asking will I marry him!!? Wait, what?! Of course YES, but wait what? Haha. And next thing I know there’s champagne being sprayed and all our friends running on the field and celebrating with us! HOLY SHIT is all I could say, over and over. Sean had been planning this for months and had it organized down to a “T”, including getting the league to switch the field we were scheduled to play one, since this was the field we first met on. Getting proposed to is such a special, emotional time and then to have all our friends running on the field, the field where we first met 6 years ago, was an emotion overload. It was SO special to have our friends, who are like family to us, there and able to celebrate in the excitement as well. I can’t imagine what the other teams who were getting ready to play thought. Apologies if we delayed your game! ;)
Post proposal we headed to a bar for more celebrating and showing off the bling and me continuing to say HOLY SHIT! After drinks, I thought we were getting a ride home from BenAnna, but then we pull up in front of a downtown hotel. What! It keeps getting better. Our friend Joel treated us to champagne and we kept buzzin’ off the excitement and love we felt from all our friends. Everyone did an amazing job and no one spilled the secret!!
But that's not the end of the surprises...
The next morning, Sean said “let’s check the weather” and opens up the weather app on his iPhone and it is showing Reykjavik's weather. Odd, that’s not San Francisco. He says, “looks like we’ll need coats” and proceed to bring out luggage that was hiding in the room closet!! Cue more HOLY SHITS! WHAT, WE’RE GOING TO ICELAND??! How could an amazing evening possibly get even better. Sean also planned a surprise trip to Iceland for nine days!! But wait, I was supposed to have one more week at the coffee shop. He emailed my manager and one of the owners to see if they could cover my shifts, which they were able to do. So that would make that Monday of our engagement my last day and starting this trip being a full time photographer. W O A H. Shit just got real! HA. And this was the one week I didn’t have any paid shoots planned and somehow it all worked out. Sean, with Anna’s help, had packed my suitcase for me and we headed to SFO from the hotel.
We proceeded to have the most amazing nine day exploration of Iceland. I have wanted to visit Iceland for years, pre it being super cool, so this was a jaw-dropping surprise. I didn’t think I would make it to Iceland for a while, I thought maybe for our future honeymoon whenever that happened. But instead, Sean is an amazing, thoughtful partner and planned this trip. We’re calling it our #agavemoon . Get it? ;)
Iceland is a beautiful country. We rented a car and were able to explore the island each day. We went down towards the South side of the island and then came back up to Reykjavik and up to the Westfjords. We ended up driving more than 2,000km and every kilometer was beautiful. I feel with each turn, we couldn’t believe the scenery. We definitely thought we were on Mars many times, with much of the landscape being barren lava fields with this beautiful green moss. And so many waterfalls! I am going to do a “views from the car window” post with all the pictures I took while driving!
And that is our engagement story! WOW <3 Now to enjoy this exciting time… and try not to think about planning a wedding yet. Being in the industry is definitely going to make it easier and more difficult to plan a wedding, haha.
Engaged or married couples, what is one piece of advice you have for me? I want to hear it all because I’m joining the party!!
Thank you for reading if you made it all the way here :)
XO WolfBot
