For those of you who know Bahareh, she is very difficult to surprise! The first step was finding the perfect ring with the help of her amazing sisters, Bita and Sara. After their many "dentist appointments" and my endless time "playing tennis", we came up with a beautiful customized diamond ring that we knew she would love.

The next step was to pick the perfect place to make it happen. Although I did consider doing it at the Rise festival, I didn't quite have the ring ready and it would have been too rushed. Little did I know at the time of that trip, that Bahareh was anticipating me to pop the question at the Rise festival (remember, difficult to surprise!). It was a funny story afterwards that ended up helping to keep the actual surprise intact as you will soon see.

Bahareh and I had already planned to attend my good friend Zach's wedding to Brooke in Indiana, and we decided to make it an extended trip to explore the east coast a bit and take a trip to Florida. Bahareh had told me repeatedly how much fun she had in Florida in the past, and this would be a great way to make it even an even more special place for her. I researched several places near Miami that I thought would be a great setting for this special occasion and finally decided on Matheson Hammock Park.

After going through two nerve-racking airport security checkpoints with the ring hidden in the depths of my carry-on luggage, we arrived in beautiful sunny Miami, Florida. I was constantly checking the weather report and praying there would be no rain on December 15th, 2015. On top of this, there were two close calls where the surprise was almost ruined. The first was during Zach and Brooke's wedding during cocktail hour when Bahareh turned to me and said "You want to hear something funny? My friend Holly told me she thinks you are going to propose to me on this trip". Thinking my cover was blown, I blushed, and she called it out, to which I vehemently denied, and luckily she said "Oh it must be these red Christmas lights". The second was the night before the proposal in our hotel room. Bahareh had stepped away to take a call, and it was none other than Holly! Bahareh filled me in on the call in which Holly asked her if I had done it yet. At this point, I took Bahareh's hand and told her "I don't want you to be constantly wondering when it's going to happen, and I want us to enjoy this relaxing trip and you not to think about it like our last trip. When it happens it will all make sense." This was the key moment in keeping the surprise, as she was assured at this point that something was definitely being planned but likely at least a month or two away.

The morning of the proposal came, and Bahareh and I had a nice brunch at our hotel while my nerves were at an all time high. I was struggling to keep the rather large ring box concealed in my pocket, and managed to get away to the bathroom to switch to my sock. We were all ready to go, and I opened up my phone to request an "Uber" as we had done all trip long. Our driver arrived, and asked where to. I told him that I was thinking about checking out a few different parks, and listed them off including Matheson Hammock, and asked him for his opinion on which he thought was the best choice. He described them all, but singled out Matheson Hammock as being the most eye-catching one to see. He was a very friendly driver, and gave us basically a tour of Miami beach on our 25 minute ride to the park. We arrived, and we walked around a bit, until I found the tree that I saw in pictures that I wanted to pop the question at. I took Bahareh over to the tree, and asked if she wanted to take some pictures with me at the tree. As she was getting out her phone, I got down on one knee, retrieved the ring from my sock, gave my speech, and asked her "Will you marry me?". After a resounding "Yes!", a man with a camera appeared behind us who had captured the moment. He approached us, and I introduced Bahareh to our "Uber driver", who was now without his sweater and sunglasses. We immediately had a 2 hour engagement photo session, and after had an amazing seafood dinner at the Red Fish Grill right there at the park. She was legitimately surprised and had a million questions for me. I had a few other surprises for her, and we spent the next few days exploring the Florida Keys and sailing into the sunset together.

B&B

Wedding Day

3:30 PM

Wedding

Reception