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I don’t know about you but one of my favorite things to find out about my wedding and engagement couples is how they met, and then how he proposed. Take a peek at how Anthony proposed to Kelly and you will fall in love with this couple as much as I did!

HOW HE PROPOSED

Being with someone for 6 years, there are little-to-no secrets. The idea that we both wanted to get married was, in fact, one of those “non-secrets.” We’ve talked about it countless times before and nearly 3 years of long distance dating post-college & months of having an apartment together only solidified the notion. Unfortunately for me…that only made the proposal that much more difficult to figure out.

It had to be perfect. It had to be a surprise and the ring had to be unique. After months of trying to design the perfect ring and attempting to crack the code of a perfect proposal, I settled on the only thing that made sense; a proposal at Penn State, the place that led to us meeting and the one similarity and passion that we will always share. The only question was when should I do it?

I’m not usually one to say “hey let’s randomly go here” so I needed a good excuse to get Kelly to Penn State without her being suspicious. Luckily for me, her birthday and the Christmas holiday season were right around the corner, so I had options. At the expense of Kelly’s preference to not have a proposal on a birthday or major holiday, I decided to pull the trigger on her birthday, November 30th, 2016.

Despite the intermittent rain showers, we still decided to take the day off of work and head up to Penn State. We began the day at Mount Nittany Winery, sampling some wine, snacking on meat & cheese, and of course…buying a few bottles to take home. We then drove to downtown State College, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and proceeded to do some early Christmas shopping. It was around 3pm when the butterflies started and a nervous vomit feeling hit me. At this point, it was impossible for me to continue shopping, but I had to keep it together for a few more minutes.

The time was coming. We decided to walk back to the car around 4pm. Little did Kelly know I had been texting a long-time family friend of mine for weeks, Kaylee Blasiak, who still went to Penn State. We agreed for her to “bump into us” in front of the Christmas tree at the intersection of Allen Street and College Avenue. Despite the subpar weather and Kelly’s last ditch effort to unintentionally ruin my proposal plan (aka she realllllllly wanted to go to Chipotle), we had made it to the tree.

Earlier in the day, I had mentioned to Kelly that I wanted a picture in front of the tree for Christmas and that we would simply find someone to take it. Coming across the street we happened to see a “random student” and asked her to take a picture. As planned, it was Kaylee! At this point, Kelly thought it was just pure coincidence that we bumped into our only friend that was still attending Penn State. Of course, she eventually realized it wasn’t :).

Naturally, Kelly’s phone ran out of picture memory, so after scrambling to swap phones with Kaylee it was happening…I was doing it. After getting down on my knee, fumbling to get the ring out, unsure if I was actually saying words, grabbing the wrong hand, and being shaky enough to nearly put the ring on the wrong finger, I asked Kelly to marry me. Thankfully…she said yes! (though not 100% confirmed, as it all turned into a blur).

Once we got back to Harrisburg, we celebrated the only way we knew how….Chipotle.

Okay back to their wedding. They planned their ceremony and reception at Liberty Forge in Mechanicsburg PA, which is a favorite location of mine. My husband Matthew and I actually were married there ourselves in 2003. Their colors were light purple. They had fill your own bags with lavender as their favors. You totally have to check out how beautiful her bridesmaids were… Stunning! Their day was full of sunshine, smiles, tears of joy, laughter and one of the best dance parties I have been to in awhile!