I’m so excited to share about our sweet proposal that happened on Saturday!!! Craig and I are both still on cloud 9, not sure when that will wear off.  I have gotten so many questions and I hope I cover everything in this post.  I also am excited to have all of this written down for Craig and I to look back on in the future, so, sorry if it’s a little long.

Most of you know that I have grown up going to my parent’s cottage in Gloucester, Va.  It is truly my favorite place in the world.  Craig could have proposed to me here with a weed and I would have been ecstatic, ha!  Ever since we got River, we have been wanting to show him his namesake and take him to the cottage.  The first sunny weekend we had, we both made sure it could happen.

A little backstory- Craig apparently got the ring back in February and he picked it up the hour before Diamonds Direct closed for the virus, crazy!  He met with my mom, dad, and brother the day before Easter.  I love how he included my whole family.  He had lunch with them and asked for their blessing and they all happily agreed.  I was under the impression that Craig was at Lowe’s while this was happening, it did seem like a long Lowe’s trip but I didn’t suspect anything!

So on Saturday morning, while we were packing to go to the river, Craig suggested bringing a nicer outfit so we could take a picture with our puppy there.  I was a tad bit curious about this request because Craig 1. never wants to dress up and 2. I am always the one coming up with our picture ideas, surprise surprise!  I made sure to pack a dress and that was that!  I will walk you through the day now.

We got to the river around 10am and our morning was very lazy…see below!

We took River down to the water to see how he would do.  He was more interested in eating sand than swimming but he did eventually give us one good doggy paddle!

Craig had gone to the grocery store the night before and bought steaks for us to grill at the river.  This wasn’t very suspicious because we have been doing A LOT of grilling lately.  Before dinner, I actually suggested we put on our nice clothes that we brought and I even put River in a bowtie.  I was super excited to take a family picture now that he is getting a little bigger!


This picture is so funny to me because this was what I thought was “the picture.”  We were standing outside grilling steaks and someone walked by and we asked them to take our photo.  I was super excited that we got one when the puppy was somewhat calm.

This was our dinner, yumm!!! Craig brought all of the ingredients and cooked it for us.
Right after dinner, Craig asked if I wanted to go on a walk.  I think it was a blessing in disguise that our little guy had already fallen asleep for the night.  I’m not sure what Craig would have done if I had dragged wild man down on the pier with us.  The thing about this community is the pier is a communal pier.  At any given moment there could be people hanging out on it.  We turned the corner to “take our walk” and Craig says he breathed the biggest sigh of relief.  The pier was completely empty!!! The pier is a good quarter of a mile long so on our walk down, Craig reached for my hand and started talking about how far we have come in just a year.  I started mentally freaking out at this point.  All day I had been convinced Craig was going to propose later in the Spring or Summer but at this moment, I thought it “could” be happening right now, ahhhh!!

We walked down the pier and Craig played one of my favorite songs by the Avett Brothers on a speaker.  The song is called I and Love and You and means a lot to me.  We had tickets to see Avett Brothers this summer in Denver and the concert officially got canceled the day before.  Once the song started playing he grabbed my hands and we danced through the whole song.  After we danced, he told me how he wants to start a family with me one day and bring our kids down to the cottage to experience all that I experienced growing up.  He told me how much he loved me and honestly the rest is a blur!! He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I fell into his arms and honestly didn’t even notice the ring.

Eventually Craig put the ring on my finger and I was honestly stunned.  I’ve never been in complete shock but I felt close to it.  I had just gotten proposed to by my dream guy at my favorite place on earth.  I couldn’t believe it was real.  Craig and I sat on the pier just us for about 20 minutes and talked about our future and listened to some of our favorite songs that remind us of our relationship.  We danced to the song that’s going to be our first dance at our wedding, that one is a surprise!  Once we noticed the sun was almost below the trees we went up the pier and grabbed my camera and a neighbor to come down and take some photos for us.  I had told Craig early in our relationship that I didn’t want a photographer at our proposal.  My only other request was that he propose somewhere that was just us.  I really wanted the intimate proposal moment to be just between him and I!

The neighbor, Will, that came down was AWESOME.  He offered to take as many photos as we’d like and we fully took advantage.  See below!







When we were done with photos we went back up to the cottage and Craig had champagne and roses waiting for me.  How he packed this in the car without me knowing, I will never know.  We tried to wake up River to celebrate with us and he DID NOT CARE AT ALL.  He was so tired and thought we were being ridiculous, it was really funny!
Once we put River back to sleep, we facetimed our parents immediately.  Craig’s family was so excited and they already knew that his was going to happen that specific day.  My parents did not know it was happening so the call to them was fun as well.  My mom shed some tears and my dad smiled bigger than I’ve ever seen him smile!

When we got home from the cottage, we had flowers, balloons, ring pops and all sorts of stuff waiting our return.  We can’t put into words how much we appreciate all the love from our family and friends.  We have realized through all of this how loved we are and it is overwhelming.  I can’t wait to celebrate with each of you and share more about my love for Craig.  I will be sharing more about our relationship and wedding plans over the next few weeks.

Also, a little side note.  For those of you that are still waiting.  Waiting for a boyfriend, a proposal, a child- I am with you!!!! I waited almost 30 years, photographed 50 weddings, was in 3 weddings, and attended numerous weddings before it happened for me.  I understand the longing and want you to know I am ALWAYS available to talk if that is something you’re struggling with.

And now…you know I couldn’t finish without showing you all some pictures I took of my ring.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Ashley Edmunds