The Story

Joe & I met almost 5 years ago.  I was working at a local grocery store in Pennsylvania and he would come in from time to time with his sister.  His sister asked me on numerous occasions if I had a boyfriend because her brother thought that “I was beautiful”.  After a few months I decided to talk to his sister when she was shopping alone one day.  She wrote down his number for me and when she came through my register to be checked out I handed her my number to give to him being as though I was way to shy to call him first.

We talked for a while and got to know each other over the phone.  I hadn’t been aware that he lived in Long Island until he mentioned it.  We started hanging out every weekend when he would come up to visit his family and officially started dating August 13, 2004.  I graduated from high school in June of 2005 and moved to Long Island to live with him in July. 

As for the proposal…

That didn’t come until about two years into our relationship.  I knew it was going to happen being as though we had already been scoping out rings, I just wasn’t sure when it was going to come.  We had went to Lake George, our yearly vacation place and I was POSITIVE that he was going to do it on 4th of July when we went to see fireworks... I was wrong though :-).  Instead he did it on Thanksgiving.  Since both of our parents live near Pennsylvania (about 15 minutes from each other), we both do Thanksgiving Dinner with our parents and then we meet up afterwards for dessert or what not.  Joe had came to my parents house for dessert that night, he had went into the basement to see my dad and to "look at the car he's rebuilding" (he really went down to ask my father for his permission to ask me to marry him).  When Joe came up, he handed me a gift bag and said "Happy Early Birthday", being as though my birthday was in about 2-3 weeks.  He had already told me that he was getting me a necklace for my birthday so that's what I was expecting.  As I opened the necklace box, there was a ring box inside.  It really hadn't hit me at this point until I opened the ring box and seen the ring.  I guess I was in more shock than anything and I really don't remember much that happened after this (if he even got on his knee to ask... I think he did)... I just remember fanning my face and bawling my eyes out :-).  After the proposal we went to his mom and dad's house and then to his sisters house to let them all know.