Once Keith and I were “going steady,” I quickly knew he could be / was the “one”. Keith says he knew early on that he wanted to marry me as well but probably not as soon as I knew. 🙂

After a couple years of dating, whenever my family and friends would ask me when I thought he would propose, the response was always “I think soon”. But soon was a little more than four and a half years into our relationship.

In January 2012, we hit our four year dating anniversary and I had a feeling he would propose within the first half of the year. Winter turned to Spring, which then turned to Summer and still no proposal. At this point, I decided to give up on the idea of it happening any day now and accepted the fact that when Keith is ready, he will propose. If you know Keith, he’s not the type of person that “jumps the gun” when it comes to important decisions. He does things in his own time and I respect him for that.

We always talked about marriage, even during our second year of dating. It was around three to four years of dating, when we had started talking about ring styles (this is probably why I thought he was going to propose much sooner than he did…ha!). Keith has always been pretty good about knowing my style and what I like – he knew the ring had to be timeless, vintage with a touch of shabby chic. Although he didn’t propose until October, he had picked out the ring months before. Keith did an amazing job as the ring was absolutely perfect. He even designed it himself!

I’ll turn it over to Keith to describe the proposal:

Jo made it clear that she didn’t want anything public, so I spent time thinking through options that would be more intimate. Originally, I planned to take her on a trip up the Pacific coast during the summertime, stopping in a couple of small cities on the way, ultimately finishing in San Francisco where we have friends. Unfortunately our schedules just didn’t work out, so I had to think of something else. I knew I wanted to get our dog Pearl involved, so I wrote a letter (from her) and tied it around her neck.

On a friday night in late Fall, Jo was working a little later than expected. I told her that I would get dinner started (we had planned to make a roast beef). After she came home from work, she expected to come home to the smell of roast beef in the oven but instead saw Pearl walked down our stairs to greet her and deliver a letter to join me upstairs. I couldn’t see Jo during this time but knew as she walked up the stairs, she would see the dozens of red and white roses that I lined the spiral stair case with in our apartment. When she got to our bedroom, I stood there with our favorite song playing in the background. I gave her my spiel, which I’ll spare you with, before getting down on one knee with ring in place. I remember Jo saying “OMG, OMG, OMG…” about a million times before she said yes. It was a night to remember – we called our closest family and friends shortly after before heading to dinner at a place down the street from us. Till this day, I still owe her the roast beef dinner I promised!

pearl approved!