[Images: Photography by Steve & Jane]
Well I’m BACK! Back in the blogging groove this week with the most quintessential Washington DC engagement session and love story. It was SO NICE to take a much needed, full week off of work and blogging, but I am happy to be back in my favorite city, sharing more DC love with you guys as we prep for the end of 2014 and the holiday season. I hope you all had a GREAT Thanksgiving … we got to eat outside in Arizona, as it was 70 on Thanksgiving day! But enough about me, let’s get to Katie & Ryan:
Katie and Ryan met through Twitter – how cool is that?! And over a mutual love of DC, beer, and the Washington National’s President mascots they fell in love. I’m not sure you can get more DC than this and they’ll be capping off their DC love with a wedding at the Decatur House (eep!) next Fall.
How they met:
We met on Twitter! Ryan followed me because he thought I was cute, and I followed him back because I thought I recognized him. We discovered we lived in the same neighborhood and chalked it up to “well maybe I’ve seen you out and about on H Street.” We kept tweeting at each other periodically for the next month or so. Then, in January 2013, the Nats announced they’d be adding a fifth Racing President to their lineup, and I tweeted a link to the Washington Post article on the subject with my commentary “C’MON CHESTER A. ARTHUR” (because, who the f is that amirite, haha). Ryan replied to my tweet with “If it’s not Millard Fillmore, I’m canceling my season tickets.” The response just so perfectly encapsulated my sense of humor, so my next tweet to him was “Can we be friends in real life?” We planned a time to meet up for drinks, and the rest, as they say, is history.
After reading this, I kinda wanna be friends in real life with these two too! So fun.
Click inside for the rest of Katie & Ryan’s DC engagement pictures AND the awesome proposal story!
How he proposed:
I got an email from my friend Julie asking if I would be up for a lady day on the following Saturday. I said sure, and we made plans to get our hair and nails done together. When I told Ryan what our plans were, he suggested that he and I make dinner reservations for that day since I’d be looking so nice afterward. The day came, and Julie and I got blowouts and manicures, then I met up with Ryan at Taberna del Alabardero for a ridiculously decadent meal. (Holy smokes, that place is so good.) After dinner, Ryan suggested we go around the corner to the Sofitel, the hotel bar of which he had heard had “really good cocktails.” We go, order a few drinks, and sit on the patio enjoying ourselves and watching the passersby. At that point, a server came over to us asking if we were ready for our bill, to which Ryan said, “Just put it on my room.”
“So, I have a confession to make,” Ryan said. “The real reason I brought you here is because I have a room upstairs.”
“For the night?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“But I don’t have any stuff!”
“I got it,” he said.
“Even my contacts?” (I don’t know why I was so concerned about that.)
“Yep! So do you wanna go up there?”
“YES!”
We got in the elevator and up to the ninth floor, then headed to a corner room. Ryan let me go in first. When I turned on the light, I saw that he had decorated the room with tulip bouquets (one of my favorites) and there was a string with notecards hanging off of it running from one end of the room to the other.
I started reading the notecards: “These notecards represent 10 moments in our relationship that solidified my love for you. This list is by no means exhaustive, but these moments were the best.”
Each card said something different — they detailed such events as when we went to a concert where there was a poetry reading and I couldn’t stop laughing, and the time we slow-danced in our hotel room after going to a wedding. He wrote some of the sweetest things on each card.
Finally, the last card: “The time I asked you to marry me and you said yes, because I knew we would be together forever.”
When I turned around, Ryan was down on one knee. “I knew I wanted to do this for a long time, but now let’s make it official: Will you marry me?”
“YES!” At that point, tears were streaming down my face because I am a happy crier and cannot control myself!
We cracked a bottle of champagne (which Ryan had also stocked our room with, along with my favorite kind of beer) and called our friends and family to tell them the good news. But, there was one friend I didn’t have to call — Julie, who had been in on the whole thing. Ryan asked her to take me out for a girls’ day so I would be out of the house while he went over to set up the hotel room. It was awesome!
A special thanks again to Photography by Steve & Jane for submitting this DC engagement session to us via Two Bright Lights!
