Our Paris Engagement Story

Where do I even begin? First off, I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I’ve updated you on all of the happenings. It’s been such a crazy, life-changing couple of weeks! If you’ve been following along on Instagram, then you may have seen that my boyfriend of four years and I got engaged in Paris! Being in Paris was already such a dream come true, that a proposal from the love of my life turned the experience into a real life fairy tale. For those of you who just started following, Ryan is both my boyfriend and my photographer/creative partner for The M.A. Times. We literally fell in love at first sight four years ago, and he been by my side ever since for everything from the business of blogging, to my emotional supporter, to my best friend, and everything in-between. Though I don’t speak to my personal life much here on the blog, this is something I couldn’t help but want to share with each and every one of you.

If I were to go into elaborate detail about the extensive planning Ryan put into our Paris engagement, you may be here for the next century reading. I was blown away by the amount of time, love, and thought that went into every moment of the proposal. Little did I know, there were a million hands involved in the planning of making this day perfect and one I would remember forever – I’ve never felt more adored by those surrounding me. Sometimes it actually does take a village – and I’m so thankful to everyone who played a part in our magical day! His master plan was put into motion several months ago when he coordinated with the amazing team at Anthropologie to organize a style shoot for me in Paris in the Tuileries Garden. When I got the news about the shoot, I had no idea he was actually behind it, nor did I know he was actually the one picking out a dress for the day that he knew I would love, and having it sent to me.

We arrived at the shoot location (a little jet-lagged and sleepy-eyed) at 7:30am on Wednesday, November 2nd. I met my photographer, Tala, and started posing as normal for my style shoot – not to mention in the must stunning location, EVER. I had been told by Anthropologie that if I had a male friend traveling with me, to have him wear a suit, as he may be needed for a few of the shots. After a couple minutes of shooting, Tala asked him to step into the pictures with me.  After the first couple of clicks, he turned towards me, grabbed both of my hands, and in that moment I knew. The rest of the world completely disappeared as he told me he wanted to spend his life with me and got down on one knee. I, of course, said yes, amongst my uncontrollable outburst of tears. Though I’d already known I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, having him officially ask made my love for him instantly intensify a million times over.

His tear-jerking proposal, however, wasn’t the end of our morning. He had then arranged for us to make a stop at all of my favorite places in Paris. We started in the Tuileries, strolled down along Le Seine, headed over to the Louvre, Jardin du Palais-Royal, the clock in Musée D’Orsay, Pont Alexandre III, and ended our adventure at Trocadéro. Because he is usually the one behind the camera, he had Tala come along on our journey to capture us in all of my favorite places in Paris. We headed for a relaxing breakfast afterwards at Carette to take a moment to soak in everything that had just happened. As we enjoyed our tea and pastries, our waitress delivered an envelope to the table with my name on it. I opened it up to find letters from each of our parents, congratulating us on our engagement. It was so special – definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole process. It meant the world to be able to hold their sweet words, since I couldn’t give them a hug from thousands of miles away.

Stay tuned for even more details of our proposal on Thursday – our day wasn’t quite over yet! Thank you so much for reading – I’m so excited to share this special time in our lives with all of you.

A special thanks Tala Nicole Photography for capturing all of these incredible moments for us.

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