I cannot believe their wedding is THIS Saturday!!! So excited to see their beautiful day come together at a venue I’m looking forward to photographing, Oatlands Plantation. 🙂 Garret, Nicole and I met at the Riverbend Park in Great Falls for an early riser last week. Woke up at 5 a.m. … which I’ll admit is tough to do … but honestly, it is worth it! And note to self: There are people who do this EVERY day and because of it, there is traffic even before 6 a.m. on 66! Crazyyyy… After the tedious traffic we all went through, immediately our spirits were brightened by seeing the bluebell flowers in bloom! We waited until the last possible time to do this session before their wedding day so we had the chance to photograph these beautiful flowers. Even though not all of them were in bloom, the ones that were are beautiful! And to say the least, I had a blasttttt photographing these two! So calm and natural! I cannot wait for their wedding day this Saturday! <3
Garret & Nicole’s Love Story
Garret and Nicole met in Northern Virginia at a horse farm. She worked on the farm and he hoped to take riding lessons. From the beginning there was a great sense of humor and banter between the two but it took 6 months before they officially start dating. Garret fell in love with Nicole’s enthusiasm for life and positive energy. Nicole fell in love with Garret’s inner strength and caring personality. Today, seven years later, they look forward to getting married, buying their first home, and embarking on life’s journey together.
* If you want to read their full proposal story, check out the bottom of this blog posting … it’s ADORABLE! *
Thank you both for a wonderful time! See you two this weekend!!!! xoxo
Super cute!
Love this!
One of my faves!
Another fave!
Gorgeous, Nicole!
LOVE the lighting!
Cute!
Even cuter!
Nose kisses! Love it!
Anotherrrr fave!
Thanks Garret and Nicole for a great time in Riverbend Park!!!
The proposal:
When it happened-Saturday, March 30, 2013
The Story, by Garret
Well, in true Bowser fashion, there are countless hurdles in the proposal story. I have to say that each one highlighted in this story will forever cause me to smile when I think of our engagement even though at the time they were slightly stressful. What is success without adversity though? Let me begin.
Chapter One: The Ring
I am not one to enjoy shopping for things that I know nothing about or even have a cursory knowledge of. The main reason is I feel as if the salesman is doing exactly what salesmen do and convince you that you need something you really don’t. So being armed with nothing more than memories of what Nicole told me she liked from 2010, I entered the frey. I found a jeweler in Great Falls, VA, Adeler Jewelry, made an appointment, and started the process. Mr. Adeler immediately put my mind at ease by stating that if Nicole did not like the ring he would happily take it back and provide us store credit for any custom design she may want. This took all my anxiety of my poor memory of what she wanted off my mind. How can I lose now? He did an initial sketch of her ring design, explained the process, talked diamonds and provided guidance on to acquire the diamond. Adeler has their own diamond exchange but he did recommend that I explore all options to include Blue Nile before making the purchase. Either way he would happily incorporate the diamond into the ring no matter where it came from.
Chapter 2: The DIamond
I go home and attempt to secretively search for a diamond while Nicole is only feet away from me. This whole operation has to remain a surprise for our six year anniversary as a couple. I became very very familiar with Alt Tab to switch between windows and Private Browsing, even though that did not always seem to hide the fact that I was looking for diamonds via those awful ads on either side of my Yahoo account. Over the course of a few stress filled evenings I manage to find what appears to be a great diamond at a great price from Blue Nile. I sleep on it and the next morning pull the trigger. I get the GIA report after the purchase and take it into Mr. Adeler for some assurance that I didn’t just do something idiotic. His response, “For that price you stole this diamond.” Again, I feel much better about my choice. I told him it will be here in five days and I will drop it off as soon as I get it.
Chapter Three: The Build
After the diamond was ordered, I begin watching my order process like a hawk. I wanted to get the ring done before our six year anniversary on April first and Mr. Adeler said it would take three to four weeks to create. I felt like every 20 minutes I was looking at the order seeing if it was shipped yet. As it was coming from overseas, I was constantly left with a message of “In Customs”. I don’t know what they do in customs but I can tell you it takes them a long time to do it. Finally, it is released to the control of that crack team at FedEx for overnight delivery. Now some of you may know that FedEx allows you to have a package dropped off at a local FedEx store for you to pick up and some of you may know that they can leave a package at your doorstep if you request it. I am certain all of you know that they do not tell you when they will be delivering a package. So I thought I could just get it dropped at the door step. Well I couldn’t do that as a signature was required. Then I thought I can get it dropped at a FedEx location. Wrong again, because Blue Nile requires ME to sign for it. That left me with one option, try to beat the FedEx guy home from my office. I didn’t get much work done that morning. If I thought I had stared at “In Customs” for hours, then I stared at “At FedEx Delivery Center” for centuries. Then it happened, “Out for Delivery”. I lept from my desk and down the hall I went, almost destroying somebodies morning by knocking them down. I race to the house to find no package or delivery slip. I come through the door and within 10 minutes there is a knock. Dogs going nuts and me sweating, I open it to find the FedEx guy. I sign and thank him then it is off to Adeler’s to drop it off and start the process.
Mr. Adeler was waiting for me at his shop and I handed him the diamond. He had his daughter verify the GIA information and asked me how big to make the ring. I had tried on one of NIcole’s rings while she was in the shower, and remembered how far down my finger it got. So I attempted to recreate that with the sizer rings at his shop. Upon initial investigation, I came up with a size six. We shook hands and he said he would call me in by March 27th. I had three and a half weeks to relax and figure out how to propose. Life was going well.
Chapter Four: The Proposal
The day was drawing near. We had plans on March 30th to go out to dinner and see the symphony. The ring was slated to be done by the day before. Given the fact that I am horrible at keeping a secret and have been playing this whole thing very very close to the chest, I was really interested in proposing sooner rather than later. My thought was to propose either on the 30th during our date or do something in the morning when we were more alone. After thinking a bit more about it over three weeks, I decided to purpose early in the morning on the 30th or 31st, perhaps at the Cherry Blossoms down in DC.
Those from the area will remember that it was a very long winter. So when I got the call from Adeler on Friday afternoon, it was still pretty cold and the cherry blossoms were not out at all. Not a single blossom. I had to call an audible. Nicole loves the flower called Virginia Blue Bell and it just so happened that right down the street from us is the largest population of blue bells in Fairfax County. Me being the great story teller that I am, I convinced her that we should go on a hike Saturday morning and see the flowers. So we get up and head out, with the ring in my pocket, at 7 AM Saturday morning. The first thing I noted was the chill in the air and when we arrived to the park the lack of anything blue. Who would have figured that flowers weren’t really blooming yet either.
We started walking down the path, both with a bit of a chill coming over us. Nicole had her camera and was doing her best to take pictures of interesting things. Eventually I found that no one was around us, so at any given point I could propose. The sun was coming up over the Potomac and there were two big birch trees right on the river bank with a nice clearing. I suggested to Nicole that would be a great place for a picture. While her back was to me, I dug into my pocket and got the ring out. I started getting down on one knee when I realized that I was all of a sudden getting very nervous.
I would like to take this time to mention that I talked with one of my good friends about proposing. He had stated that he practiced what he was going to say about 100 times before he actually did it. He also said that when he did propose he spoke it and believes he got it all right but admitted it was a bit of a blur. I sort of chuckled in my mind and thought, how hard could this be? I get down on a knee and say “I love you and will you marry me?” Seriously how hard could that be? Let me tell you, harder than you think.
So as I am getting down on a knee I start to get very nervous, the first time in this whole process that I was ever nervous and it is during crunch time. So I find myself on one knee with Nicole turning around and a totally blank mind. I had nothing in there, not a monkey banging a drum, not what we were having for breakfast and certainly not “I love you and will you marry me?” That was a big problem. Nicole turns all the way around and is now locked on to me with my outstretched arm and a ring in my fingers. My mouth was open but nothing was coming out, not words, not air, not anything. She looks at me for what felt like an eternity and all I could think was “What am I doing? Say something, Garret, say ANYTHING!!!!” Nicole saved me from my purgatory when she said “Yes, of course I will!” and took the ring from my hand. I stand up and finally can say something, it might have been “Thank you” but I can’t remember.
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