My husband and I are celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary today. It’s a Friday, we both have work today, plus all the parenting duties… and a family movie night tonight. It’s my five-year-old son’s turn to pick the movie this week and my daughter’s turn to pick dinner, so we’ll likely be watching something Spiderman-y while eating Burger King. LOL What a way to ring in 10 years together, eh? ;)

Our story is an interesting one. We met on Craigslist (yup… via a personal ad) and had our first date in Jaunary of 2008 at Shari’s. (Super classy, eh?) We were dating for just a couple of months when I received my acceptance letter from a grad school that I’d applied to before I met him. A grad school in Canada.

It took him no time at all to decide that he was going to come with me. Freaked me the heck out! I’d known this dude for just a couple of months and now he wanted to MOVE WITH ME TO CANADA?? I took a breath, told myself that a lot could change between April and August when I was set to move north, and decided to just see what happened.

We moved in together that summer to test the waters, and then, come August, we were packing up a moving van headed for British Columbia. It all happened really fast… which made me nervous (I get nervous a lot… lol), but he was so SURE about things that it made it easier for me to just go with the flow.

In July of 2009 we decided to go to his family’s vacation home in Waldport, Oregon for the Fourth of July holiday. They do an awesome firework show on the bay just south of the house in Yachats, Oregon. We packed up a picnic dinner, our camp stove and chairs, and headed down to the beach to get comfortable. We cooked dinner and waited for the fireworks. And then it got cold. And wet, We were freezing and soggy by the time the fireworks ended and wanted to get back to the house to warm up.

Back at the house he started to fill up the bath tub for me to warm up. I couldn’t wait for the water level to get high enough for an actual bath, so I sat on the edge and put my cold feet in to the warm water. It was then that he came in to the small bathroom, knelt down on the floor (squeezed between the tub and the toilet) and asked me to marry him. My response, in that moment, was “are you serious?” LOL

His plan had been to propose on the beach during the firework show… but as the weather conditions changed and we got grumpy and uncomfortable, he decided to ditch that plan. But, without a back up plan, and having a ring in his pocket, he needed to make a quick plan B. I love him for it. And I love our story. I don’t often have fond memories of bathrooms… but, I do now! LOL

In celebration of my 10 years wedding anniversary, I asked people to submit their own proposal stories. I loved reading through these, and hope you all do, too!

We were at my first Mariner's game. It was nearing time for the 7th inning stretch. I was annoyed for a few reasons, one being that I was cold but her refused to give me his coat. Then, I went and got my boyfriend some beer, and mentioned I was going to get a soda. He said no, just wait. So I sat there chewing ice I was so thirsty, giving him annoyed side glares. We were going to meet some of his work friends who were also there, but he then made us stand and wait for the inning to be over, he said his work was going to have a message to employees on the Jumbo-screen. So here I am, cold, thirsty and annoyingly just standing there. Then pops up
"Christina Corrie I love you with all my heart will you marry me? Richard" I look over and he's got one knee on the ground holding a ring. I'm a very shy person, I still believe I heard the sound of 45,000 people turn to look. I was so red but also absolutely speechless! Everything made sense now. He wasn't being a ride jerk, he didn't want me finding the ring in the coat, didn't want me to leave and miss the message, and needed me to be standing when it happened! Suck a comical story and the sweetest at the same time!
- Richard & Christina, Vancouver, WA ~ Married 10 years this month, too!

Mine went out on Valentine's day to get dinner and a movie and he was gone a really long time and our son was hungry so I called him and he was being weird. We had dinner and sat down to watch the movie and he tossed the box to me and accidentally hit me in my funny bone. I'm sitting there rubbing it, complaining that he hit me and he said "Will it make it feel better if I ask you to marry me?" And took the ring out of his pocket. 😄 He isn't the romantic type as you can tell, but his sense of humor is what made me fall in love in the first place so it was fitting.
- Jennifer & Dustin, Kelso, WA ~ Married 11 1/2 years

My husband and I started dating when we were 19 years old and fell in love fast. Hiro proposed to me on Valentines Day evening in 2000 and it was a complete surprise. We were so young (20) and he took me to the Chart House restaurant in Vancouver, which was really fancy and everyone there was much older than we were. I kept wondering if it was going to be “the night” but as things wore on, he suggested that we go to the movies after dinner. For some reason this was a sign to me that it was definitely not the night. If in fact it was, I would never be able to focus on a movie!! Well, it was the night and he got down on one knee while the whole restaurant watched and proposed. I was ecstatic with joy. My parents already knew he was going to propose and were thrilled too. I think my dad actually got on the phone and started calling people before I even said yes, because he has such a fondness for my husband. It was a really sweet time in our lives.
- Hiro & Theresa, Vancouver, WA ~ Married 18 years

Sean and I had been dating for over three years and I was ready for the next step. He still needed some time to figure out what he wanted so I asked him how much time he thought he would need. It was October. He said he would probably know by the end of the year. I totally dropped the topic of marriage, but because I tend to take things VERY literally I assumed we would be engaged by December 31st. As New Year's Eve got closer I figured he was preparing to propose at a small gathering we were having with friends. When midnight came and went without a proposal, I wondered if he had made a different decision about marriage! On the way home from the party I confronted him and he had NO IDEA I had taken him so literally. Turns out, he had indeed ordered a ring, but had never registered his "by the end of the year" comment to mean a hard, fast date. The following Friday evening we went on a re-creation of our first date (a restaurant in Chicago's West Loop and a Jazz Club). While we were drinking chocolate martinis at Bar Louie on Chicago Ave., he had a friend light candles all over his apartment to set the stage for a proposal. It was beautiful, but I still laugh at my first impression when we walked in the door. Our friend had lit all the candles, but was very afraid that the cat would light himself on fire. So we walked into a beautifully lit condo with a black and white cat screaming and meowing his head off from inside his cat carrier by the front door.
- Meg & Sean, Camas, WA ~ Married 11 years

I was leaving to go to a friend’s wedding that weekend so my boyfriend and I decided to do our weekly hike on a Wednesday evening after work. I met my boyfriend at Garden of the Gods after I rushed home to get changed. It was raining and I didn’t really feel like hiking, but he was excited so off I went... I saw his car at the trailhead and called him when I got there because I didn’t see him. Then I found him up by Balanced Rock and he was dressed in his work clothes and not hiking clothes! And he had a dirty dog with him 🤷‍♀️. I asked him whose dog that was and he said, “Yours. Her name is Creed, but we can change it.” So we talked about the dog for a few minutes and then he told me, “Creed has something else for you, but she couldn’t hold it.” I was still very confused about this (dirty brown, black?? dog) and when I turned around he was on his knee, asking me to be his wife. So, I got my dog that I had been asking for for a few years—her name is Roxie now— and engaged to my best friend all in the same day at Garden of the Gods, which is filled with beautiful red rock formations. ❤️ Turns out Phil he just picked the dog up from the humane society, she pooped in his car on the way to the trailhead, and was a mess!! Once we got her home and cleaned up, she was a beautiful, shiny black lab mix! We love our Roxie girl!!!
- Phil & Kristin, Camas, WA ~ Married 11 years

We met in 2007 at a summer Camp in America and started dating. I lived in Canada and he in England at the time. After camp, we did trans-atlantic long distance for 18 months, seeing each other every 2 or 3 months. Then when I moved to Vancouver to do my Masters, Tom got a visa and moved in with me. We lived there for a year and then I got a visa and sold everything I couldnt fit into 4 suitcases and moved to England. We returned to Camp after that first summer in 2007. We went back in 2008 and 2009. When we met in 2007, Tom joined my group of Campers who I had already spent the previous 2 summers with. So the boys in 2007 were 'our kids". In 2011, we decided to return back to camp for one last summer as it was 'our boys' last summer as campers. Well, little did I know, Tom had a ring in his pocket the whole summer, waiting for the perfect moment! On the very last day of summer, he got all of our boys down to the lake during sunset as we were going to reflect on our time at camp. He went first to share his reflection. Little did I know, that was the moment he was going to propose. He started telling a story about camp and then turned it into a beautiful proposal in front of our camp family, during sunset, at the place where fate brought us together 4 years prior. It was perfect.
- Tom & Aimee, England ~ Married 7 years

It really isn’t exciting. I fell asleep on the couch in Jake’s apartment one day and when I woke up he was staring at me. I asked him why he was staring at me and he said “we should get married.” I responded “that’s not funny” and then he pulled out a ring and asked officially. He said he had tried to come up with a plan but knew I’d catch on to any changes in our routine (we had been together for over 7 years) and wanted it to be a surprise. And it sure was! 😂
- Rebecca & Jake, Camas, WA ~ Married 16 years

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