With This Ring :
Our Engagement Story

This is ours:

When Sarah and I started dating while in college, one of the first questions I asked her, wanting to know more about her, was which beach she went to. In North Carolina this can be a pretty serious question, since our state has so many beaches and most people are pretty particular to one. Her reply, couldn't have been better.. She was an Atlantic Beach person too. Immediately this set off hours of conversation about our favorite places to visit, eat, and unwind. A few weeks later, God blessed us with one of those 80 degree winter days and I told her skip her classes for the day that I was coming to pick her up. I took her on a day trip from Greenville down to Atlantic Beach and it was there that we took our first photo together.

After dating for a little while, I saw something special in Sarah that I soon realized I couldn't let go of. I was seeing who I wanted to spend my life with and knew that whenever the time came to propose, it had to be at the Crystal Coast. There clearly are no shortage of ways to propose once you start to involve a coastal landscape, but for some reason, my mind kept going to boats. Finally, it dawned on me.. dude just charter one of the many boats that line the docks of Atlantic Beach and Morehead City!

But, y'all I needed a ring! 💍

Last December, my Mom asked me if Sarah was expecting a ring for Christmas. I said no, not for Christmas, but sometime soon! My Mom, then stopped me, and said, that she and my Dad wanted me to take the stone from my Grandmother's ring and use it. I man cried. No shame! I took the stone to Baileys and chose an awesome setting, couldn't have been happier how it turned out. I know my Nana would have loved it too. Now, that I had the ring it was back to the planning for a proposal that I had been thinking about for years. You only have one shot at this, so you've gotta do it right. 

We had picked a week to head down to the beach for a vacation, so I now had a week...needed to pick a day. Things are getting closer. I needed a boat! Fortunately, about a week before I found one that looked to be open, talked to the Captain, and he was 100% on-board to do exactly what I was looking for. Sunday came, it was down to the wire. I was acting cool as a cucumber all day, until mid-afternoon. We were sitting around the pool and I kept texting my Captain about some storms in the area and we decided to bump the charter time up by an hour to make sure we could get it in. I had to move quickly. I told Sarah that I had to run back to the condo to use the bathroom. I quickly tried to prepare a cooler with champagne bottles at the bottom, that were hidden in my luggage. Added some water, a few Cokes, a few beers, closed the lid, and made it look normal and went back to the pool like nothing had happened. When I got back, she asked me the dreaded question.. "What do you want to do for dinner tonight?" Honestly, it blindsided me and I had no thought process and I blanked. I said something to the extent of, I have that covered already. I tried to play it cool, but I think at that point she started to think something was up.

Since she didn't know where we were going, when she was trying to pick clothes later, she asked what she should wear? I told her wear something comfortable, but just be prepared for wind. I felt I had to give some kind of advice and I was just trying to cover those bases. We were ready to go and it was almost go time. We went to the car to leave, I was empty handed of course because I couldn't make things look odd. However I needed an excuse to go back to the condo, fortunately, she asked me to go back and get a brush. When I went back, I packed a bag of snacks and dropped the ring box into an empty can of peanuts I brought with me. This was 100% planned. Sarah doesn't eat peanuts and it was the perfect place for me to hide the ring box and I could put it into the bag of snacks for the boat and it would be a complete disguise.

We got to the dock, out of the car, and Sarah was not exactly sure what was going on, and was just kind of along for the ride. I hollered out to our Captain "mind if we take a ride with y'all?" and he said, yeah come on! Off we went, Sarah still unsure of what was going on, I asked her if she's ever been on one of these before? Of course, I knew the answer was no, but I was nervous. She could tell, because I wouldn't sit down, I was trying to let all of my nervous energy out, and be cool about it. We rode off down the channel and onward towards Beaufort. 

Sarah had always told me, no matter what she wanted pictures of the proposal. Obviously I hadn't hired a photographer so I had to improvise. Our captain had brought his son out with him that evening rather than his mate. I went back into the helm deck from the cockpit got the ring box out of the peanut can and said to his son, when I give you a thumbs up, come on outside and ask if you'd like for him to take our picture. Pretty normal question right?! 

I got his attention and he came out, right on queue and asked, and we both said sure. I handed him my phone and put my arm around her just like any normal photo, and it was until I grabbed her other hand and turned her towards me. Right then she knew. I told her that I loved her and that this was long overdue and that it was time. I dropped to my knee and asked if she would marry me. In the zone, I basically blacked out on the first yes, and after she said yes a second time I stood back up and slid the ring on her finger. I had pulled it off, we were engaged!

I went back into the helm deck for the champagne, shook the captain's hand and headed back outside to the cockpit to celebrate and through all of the excitement, a boat had caught Sarah's eye while I was inside and she snapped a photo. A smaller boat, sitting on a dry lift only a block from where I had proposed, with the name Miss Margaret on the back. Almost a divine intervention, as Margaret was my Grandmother's name. It was just a sign that she was there, and knew. I had pulled it off, she had said yes, and everything went off without a hitch. We were just so happy to be in our favorite place, with each other, as an engaged couple.