Congratulations to the winner of my proposal story contest - Tonya Cronce!!! Tonya submitted a very, very romantic story about how her wonderful fiance Ryan proposed to her. Have a read for their story…
I’m in my last year of college, and for my spring break we decided to go to Pensacola, Florida. Ryan told me to find the hotel and email it to his work email and he’d book the hotel there. So I narrowed it down to 2 to 3 hotels and emailed the list to him so he could make the final decision. About 2 nights before we were supposed to leave for Pensacola, I was looking online for seafood restaurants near our hotel, but I didn’t know which hotel we were staying at. So I asked Ryan which hotel he ended up booking for us. He gave me a look and said, it’s a surprise. I got a little confused and asked why he wouldn’t tell me where we were staying because I wanted to find seafood restaurants by our hotel. He asked me if I really wanted to know? And I laughed and said yes. He said, “Well, I have good news and bad news.” So I’m thinking, oh no…. what’s the deal? So I asked for the bad news first. And he said, “well, we’re not going to Pensacola.” I really thought he had canceled the trip, so I asked him why he canceled it. He said, “Well do you still remember your French?” (because it’s part of my major International Business-French, and I was a little out of practice for Spring Break) And I smiled and said, “yes, why?” And he said, “Because we’re going to Paris!”
I couldn’t sleep the entire night, I was so excited!!! I researched our hotel, restaurants, what to wear, etc, and finally was able to fall asleep about 4am, and on top of that, I had to work the next day!!! I spent the next 2 days researching things to do and see. I also shopped for the many things I thought I would need. At this point, I still did not realize that he was going to propose because I was just so excited to be traveling to a place that I’ve been wanting to visit for years.
So, we left for Paris on a Wednesday night, and we arrived in Paris on Thursday morning, checked into our hotel and took a nap because neither of us got much sleep on the 8 hour plane ride with a connecting flight in Amsterdam. I have been to Paris before, but it was years ago in middle school, and Ryan had never been to Europe at all. So we researched places we wanted to visit when we got there and knew that the first day we wanted to see the Sacre Coeur (The Sacred Heart Cathedral that sits up on a hill and overlooks the entire city of Paris). So we walked the four kilometers up-hill to get there and looking back now I recognize all the signs of how strange he was acting on the way up, but I didn’t even notice walking up there. It was so romantic walking through the streets of Paris looking into shops and drinking coffee. We took a tour of the church and looked out at the awesome view. The Cathedral sits up on a hill that overlooks the entire city of Paris and a little off to the right of the view you can see the Eiffel Tower. Ryan said he wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, and said, “Where is it?” So we walked away from the crowds in front of the church to find the view of the Eiffel Tower. By this time it is about sunset and the view was just absolutely amazing. There’s a little park (I said it was a dog pooping area, but he swears he scoped it out on the way up and it was a park!), and he says the view will be better there, but it’s down hill and I’m like, “No, it’s lower, and we have a perfect view from up here.” But he pulls me down the hill, and the park is locked!!! He starts to get really nervous, and I thought what is wrong? Why can’t we go back up. So I suggest we go back up and he reluctantly says okay. I see him fidgeting in his pocket with something, and I knew right then what he was going to do. We walk back up and stand and take some pictures and he holds me and starts kissing my forehead. I notice that his hand is out of his pocket now, and he has something in his fist. I smile, and tease him, saying “Are you getting cold? Do you want me to hold your hand to warm it up?” He says no pretty quickly. And then, he goes silent for a second, and a tour group comes up and surrounds us and starts taking pictures!!!! I just start laughing to myself!!! And Ryan is glaring at them. They finally leave about 10 minutes later, and Ryan’s still holding me. We were probably standing in that position for 30 minutes. He finally says, “Are you ready to go?” It was dark. I say, “yes.” And he says, “Wait one second.” And he gets down on one knee!!! He says, “Honey, I love you so much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I take the ring and say “Yes!!!” We hugged and kissed each other and stood and soaked in the view for a few minutes and took some pictures. We walked back down and tried to find a restaurant to celebrate in and ate some dinner and shared a bottle of wine and then went back to the hotel and made many calls to all of our family.
I found out that night that my parents knew because he went to their house a week before and asked my dad’s permission to marry me!!! I definitely have the most amazing man. My Prince Charming!!! It was so romantic!
Congratulations Tonya & Ryan!
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
