Christian and I just celebrated our 6 month "engaged-iversary" on Monday, so I thought it would be a great time to share how the wedding planning all began: the ah-ma-zing proposal! Are you ready for an incredible story? Before I can dive right in, I have to tell you about the amazing details leading up to it.  Christian had planned that he wanted to propose sometime during our trip back to the US last August.  He consulted with my sister and decided to film a video of himself asking my parents if he could marry me.  He sent the video to my sister with strict instructions not to show it to my parents until they were both together.  To make things even more exciting, he sent flowers to my parents with just a card saying "Dear M. and T.- Please check with A. for more information."  They didn't know who the flowers were from and had to wait until they were both together before my sister sat them in front of the computer and played the video for them.  Per Christian's request, she also filmed the whole thing so that we could watch their reactions later on :)

Now for the proposal:  We were visiting my family in Illinois and after breakfast on Friday morning, Christian casually mentioned that I needed to hurry up and pack because we were going to Vegas. I was like “Excuse me?!” He started smiling and would only tell me that we were heading to Vegas in a few hours…he wouldn't tell me for how many days or what we’d be doing.  He just assured me (and my family, hehe) that we would NOT be driving through any little chapels.  My sister came in to see what was going on but I quickly found out that she was in on the whole thing...I begged her to tell me what was happening but she wouldn't crack!

We got to Vegas around 9pm and checked in to our hotel- it was our lucky night because they were almost booked out so they gave us a courtesy upgrade to an 800 sq ft suite! We took advantage of living in luxury and ordered room service for dinner.  He told me I had to be up at 6:30am the next day so we went to sleep early.  As I was getting ready in the morning, he came in with some papers for me to sign but he wouldn't let me see what they were for.

After some begging and pleading on my part, he finally told me:  We were going on a Zero G flight!  The flight takes you up in the air to experience zero gravity…it is AMAZING.  There are about 15 “runs” of about 30-40 seconds of weightlessness each…on the last run, Christian said we should make sure that we float in front of a video camera…we floated on over and then he took out the ring and a little sign saying “Will you marry me?”  The ring literally floated in front of my face...it was so magical!  At the exact moment that he proposed, someone threw engagement confetti into the air (this turned out to be a total coincidence…we found out later that a guy knew he wanted to throw confetti because it would look great floating around and an engagement theme was all he could find).  It was truly spectacular!

The surprises weren't over yet though...after we got back to the hotel, we headed straight back to the airport because Christian had booked flights to Phoenix so that we could surprise my friends and celebrate with them!  He’d coordinated with one of my friends to gather everyone for dinner but all he told her was that it was just a random surprise for me…they knew nothing about the engagement so it was really fun to be able to tell the story (and show off the gorgeous ring, of course).  I am so happy and feel so blessed to have such a thoughtful person by my side for life.

Want to see how it all went down?  Take a look at some of the pics from the incredible day:

(pre and post flight pics by the plane)

(having fun experiencing weightlessness) (the beginning of our "superman" run) (right after he proposed)

(pretending to propose again after we landed)

(celebratory margaritas at the Vegas airport)

The last 6 months have flown by and in less than 2 months we'll be husband and wife.  I still feel like pinching myself at times to make sure I'm not dreaming :)  I'd love to hear your proposal stories too!