Our Lake Michigan Engagement Story

I’m excited to share our engagement story with you! I can’t believe it has already been two months since our engagement! Where in the hell does time go?

Andrew and I plan weekly dates as advised by my amazing life coach. We alternate back and fourth on who plans the date. It was mid-august and Andrew’s week to plan the date.

That Tuesday afternoon, I was working on the front porch. Andrew and I were texting back and fourth and he mentioned I needed to make sure and get the mail. I started bugging him about why I needed to watch for packages.

I had the feeling something valuable was coming. Hint, hint a ring! I had been stalking online jewelers and sending him tons of recommendations. Totally normal right? Anyways, he tells me we need to move our date from later in the week to that night because it was an outdoor activity and the weather looked bad on the day he had planned for.

Date Night Gone Right

We packed up our beach bag with a blanket and red wine and headed to the beach for sunset. Andrew insisted we stop for ice cream on the way there. I think he was just stalling. We get ice cream. Me superman because having bright blue teeth when you get proposed to is just darling.

We take our ice cream to the beach and open up the red wine. After half a bottle, Andrew walked me out to the lighthouse on the pier. The entire walk out to the lighthouse my heart was pounding. I had a feeling that package had a ring in it and it was now in his pocket.

We made it to the lighthouse, wine in hand, and hung our feet over the edge. After a few minutes of relaxation, Andrew prompted me to get up. We walked over to the other side and embraced. Jesus, I was so nervous. I thought for sure this was the damn moment. Nope. We walked all the way down the pier and back to the beach. All of a sudden, I felt sheer relief. It wasn’t happening tonight. I had gotten all worked up for absolutely nothing!

Jokes on me! We sat on the beach, finished up the wine, and then I had to pee. I suggested one more drink at the restaurant on the beach. Andrew agreed, so I started packing up our blanket into the beach bag. He walked behind me, and I said, “What the heck are you doing?” I turned around and there he was, down on one knee in the sand. He said “Miranda Nicol Allen, we have been together… (this part I blacked out and cried a lot) will you make me the happiest man ever and marry me?”

I was flooded with so many emotions. We didn’t even take a picture together with the ring. On the way home from the beach, I texted all my close friends and family to share the news. Turns out, Andrew had asked my parents for my hand in marriage when we saw them a few weeks back. He waited until he saw his close friends and parents that weekend to share the happy news in person. On Sunday, we broke the news to the social media world!

Why There Wasn’t a Photo of My Ring

I started getting questions from all sorts of people asking about the ring. This was super uncomfortable for me. Andrew proposed with a placeholder ring that had a huge fake diamond and plated rose gold. I sent a couple people pictures who asked, but I felt like a liar! Especially when the response was, “Wow, that’s huge.”

This put me in a rather icky situation. The ring was NEVER important to me besides the fact of it being a symbol of our commitment. So much of me wished that Andrew would have just proposed with a simple metal band so I could wear it all of the time and not have to deal with responses like above.

A couple weeks later, the ring started chipping, and we began the hunt for an actual ring. We looked online, at local jewelers, and revisited options we had looked at in the past. I decided to visit a favorite jeweler when I was back in Indianapolis for work and I found THE ONE!

It was absolutely perfect, and I knew the minute the jeweler dropped in the radiant diamond that this was my ring. Shane Co. was absolutely phenomenal and had the diamond set and band resized in just two days so I could wear it back home.

I am in mad love with my ring, but most importantly, I’m in love with the commitment we are making to each other. Andrew is my teammate through every step of life and for that, I am forever thankful that God brought us together. I still haven’t posted an actual ring shot, so here it is!