Nothing like being late to your own proposal...

Allow me to tell you the story of how the Snow Cones went and got themselves engaged.

The set-up: Mr. Snow Cone said he would be visiting me at Notre Dame on the weekend of April 16... which I bought without a second of hesitation.  He then told two of my best friends at ND about his plan to surprise me by visiting on April 9 and popping the question. (Admittedly, at this stage in our long-distance relationship, every time we saw each other could be proposal day, at least in my mind.  With that being said, I was actively doing my best to not read too much into things and get my hopes up for no apparent reason.  Fortunately, Mr. Snow Cone's plan to come a week early gave me literally no reason to think that April 9 would be the day.  Good work, Snow Cone!)  He enlisted their help to pull the whole thing off... a request they gladly helped with... who doesn't love an opportunity to sneak around and lie to a close friend?!

BM E concocted the surprise proposal attack plan.  The cover story was that my sophomore quad, which included BM E and BM B, would have a dinner date on April 9, as one big last girls' night out before graduation. We all agreed to make an effort to gussy ourselves up so we could take some pictures at dinner, too.  During this whole "dress cute for pictures" conversation, I happily nodded along.  I even made a mental note about the dinner date and the attire expectations.  And then I promptly forgot about the whole plan... until BM B showed up at my door, ready for dinner.  This is what she found when she swung open my door:

Image via Health Habits

While I thought she was a tad overdressed for a low-key girls' night out, she seemed to think my grungy clothes and greasy hair didn't quite meet the "dress cute for pictures" order.  BM B pretty much ordered me into the shower immediately so as to "clean up for the reunion dinner."  So, I dutifully showered and got cleaned up as quickly as possible.  After I finished getting ready, the 4 of us finally headed out to leave for dinner.  As we were leaving my all-girls dorm, I couldn't help but notice a peculiar-acting group of girls crammed into the only window in the hallway.  But, me being the super-cool almost-graduated senior that I was just figured they were being typical weird freshmen and thought nothing of it.  Let's just say that as I exited the building, it quickly became clear what had attracted their attention from the window: Mr. Snow Cone, standing outside with a huge red rose.

This is the point in time where everything gets a bit blurry, but I definitely remember him pulling me aside while I was loudly and incredulously demanding why he had shown up a week early.  He took that opportunity to interrupt me with a marriage proposal (one of the few times I haven't minded being interrupted).  As soon as his one knee hit the ground, I heard one huge, collective squeal from my dormitory... turns out that about 50 girls had squeezed into any window they could find to watch this whole thing go down.  How did so many of the girls in my dorm know about this big moment?  Well, it turns out that when you're not prepared to go to the "reunion dinner" and you need an extra 35 minutes to make yourself presentable, it gives your soon-to-be fiance a good amount of time to pace about, rose in hand, waiting to ambush you.  After the combined shocks of seeing Mr. Snow Cone there in the first place and seeing him there with a ring in hand, I exuberantly yelled a big, fat "yes!"  Here's a photo to make you feel like you were standing right there, watching it all happen:

Personal Photo

I had a ring on my finger, a new fiance, and a throng of adoring fans. I thought all of the surprises for that day had come and gone. Little did I know... (to be continued!)

Were you completely caught off-guard by your fiance's proposal?