wedding wednesday our nyc engagement

I’m so excited to link up for my first Wedding Wednesday post and share our whole engagement story and photos. And what better time to share our love story than the week of Valentine’s Day!

Our story starts in January 2015 when Jeff  and I visited NYC for the very first time. I’ve always wanted to visit the Big Apple, there is just something about it that has a always drawn me to it in movies and books. So, we decided to go for my birthday last January. This trip was a lot of firsts for us. Our first plane ride together, both of our first times in NYC and Jeff’s first time on a plane in over 10 years! It was so exciting and we had so much fun. I tried to convince Jeff to move there for months afterwards but he’s too attached to the warm weather….he did have something else in mind though…

Flash forward to Christmas. I was expecting our typical busy Christmas day followed by a really low key weekend. I actually planned on spending a lot of time at home by myself relaxing and putting away presents because Jeff told me he was working all weekend after Christmas. Imagine my surprise when I opened my present from him Christmas morning and it was tickets to NYC leaving the next morning! It was the biggest and best surprise I had ever gotten and I don’t know how he managed to keep it all a secret!

We flew out the next morning and spent our first day in the city looking at all the Christmas decorations.

The next day, we had tickets to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at night and decided to go for a walk and have a picnic in Central Park that afternoon. I actually suggested this and it worked out perfectly because Jeff had planned on doing the proposal in Central Park and didn’t even have to try to get me there!

I remember walking through the park (minutes before he proposed, ah!) and we were talking about the Radio City show that night and I said “This is going to be the best day ever!” and Jeff agreed, knowing that it really was going to be the best day ever! Jeff lead me to Bow Bridge in the middle of the park, got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife! I said yes of course!

If you’re wondering how we got the perfect in-the-moment pictures,  Jeff thought of everything and actually hired a photographer who only does NYC surprise engagement photos to capture the whole thing! (P.S. my crying face is far from perfect but authentic – I had no idea I would cry that much!)

We celebrated that night with champagne at dinner and the show (which was really spectacular, I’ve always wanted to see The Rockettes in person and we missed them last time we were there) and spent the rest of the trip either exploring the city or cuddling up and keeping warming in our hotel room – Jeff also scored us a fantastic room!

Jeff truly planned my dream engagement. Central Park is so romantic and we’ve made such great memories together in NYC. I really can’t believe that he did it all without me suspecting a thing!

We’ve been engaged for a little over a month now and have just been enjoying this season and celebrating with friends and family. I’m so grateful for all of the love and encouragement surrounding us. Now it’s for some wedding planning!