Will You Marry Me?

In January of 2008 Ian- Kimmy's now fiance- came to me during his Christmas break and asked if we could meet to talk. It was no surprise to me what was coming.

He asked if he could pursue our Kimmy with the goal of marriage. We talked for quite a while about what that might look like, with him being in California and her being here. What he thought about the timing of the engagement and ensuing wedding, employment and things like that. We decided together that it would probably not be best for them to get engaged in January of '08 and wait until he finished school- in May of '10- to get married.

I am not a fan of long engagements and neither was he- he just knew that she was the one and so we started to move forward. Keep in your mind that they have been very good friends since elementary school- so it is not like they don't know each other.

We made the decision not to tell Kimmy what was going on- which I knew would be hard- but if we let her in on the secret then they might as well get engaged. It was hard for her not knowing if Ian actually really cared for her, if he was going to find someone at college... and so we tied to encourage her along the way without telling her what had already taken place.

There were many tears on the cheeks as we talked on walks together and Teresa and I tried to assure her that Ian was not looking for someone else, without letting the cat out of the bag. This was hard to keep up, especially when he came home for the summer, but we managed to pull it off.

In early June of '09 Ian came to me again to try to figure out a plan for the engagement and plan a bit more of what the future might look like for them. Again, together we decided that he would ask her to marry him on July the 1st. He really wanted to ask her in front of the entire church, after a Sunday evening service, but that just didn't work out. Their whole mind set is that this marriage is a celebration of what God has done in 2 lives and to really celebrate that with their entire church family. So we made another plan.

On Wednesday, July 1st, after our youth ministry meeting, SKH (youth pastor), call them both into a "meeting" in his office. This was nothing more than a decoy. Here is what happened.

Kimmy had always thought that, for whatever reason, she would get engaged in our "romantic" driveway. 2 days before this we started to call some friends and tell them that Ian was going to ask Kimmy to marry him and that they wanted to share this night with many of our extended family. They were sworn to secrecy, for obvious reasons. It was actually comical on some of the calls that some did not know who the guy was. They had done a good job of not being exclusive I guess.

So we had 2 or 3 photographers, a violinist and about 50 people over to our house. The neighbors graciously allowed us to park all their cars in their driveways and so after the service they all came over, while Kimmy was in a meeting, and we hid them behind fence and little out building. We had candles lining the driveway and Ian stood in the center of a bunch of rose petals in the shape of a heart.

Kimmy drove into the driveway and noticed the candles and Ian standing there, but she waited to get out of the car. She was a little freaked out because she then knew something was up. I don't think she had any clue until that moment. She finally got out of the car and went to stand in the "heart" with Ian and he got down on one knee and told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life serving her and asked if she would marry him.

Along the way I had told some of my friends what was happening- everyone coming over to watch- and some said, "what if she says no". I told them, "You don't understand. there is no one else on the list and this is the only man in the world she wants to marry". It's a good thing we were right.

We then stayed up until midnight partying with all our friends. Ian had made a sign that said "Ian loves Kimmy". This is significant because they had never really shared their feelings with each other before.

There were lots of hugs, from everyone- tears of joy, many words of encouragement and I think the night was a great success and brought glory to our Lord. BTW- they are intending on having their first kiss at "You may kiss the bride".

So none think that he asked in a gray t-shirt, he changed clothes because it was July 1st and it was rather warm. This is the night.