The week leading up to the proposal, Robert drove all the way to Paris, Texas from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.. a good 3 hour drive... just to ask for permission in person! The week of the proposal Robert asked me on a date for the upcoming Saturday night and mentioned he wanted to go to a nice restaurant in the city. I genuinely thought nothing of it, it was a normal thing for us to go on fun random dates on Saturday nights so I obviously say yes. Saturday rolls around and I had a couple of my really good friends help me pick out what to wear that night because Robert told me to wear my "favorite nice outfit". He also told me that his co-worker had given us a free "after hours tour" of the Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City. Again, I am clueless and think nothing of this plan for our Saturday night.

So I meet him on Saturday night and we drove over to the Botanical Gardens. As we are walking up, I had to talk myself down a little and kept saying "there's no way it's happening... no way... right?... yeah, no way"

This conversation went on in my head throughout the whole walking tour of the gardens.

Everything felt soooo casual while we were there.

It also happened to be our 8 month anniversary of dating this night. And in classic Robert style, he starts to make a joke about how I had not gotten him anything for our anniversary. When I asked "well, what did you get me?!"

He responds with: "I'm taking you on a date!"

At this point of the tour, we are winding up around this staircase to a landing that looks over the entire gardens, everything we had just walked through.

Then he says, "Actually, I did get you something... I wrote you a note."

You have to understand myself and Robert to understand, this was incredibly sweet of him. I have always loved receiving notes from him. I am a big words of affirmation gal, and getting notes is huge to me.

Again, in my head I'm asking myself: "is this really happening!?"

He hands me the note.

And as soon as I opened it, I immediately went to the bottom.

(I wanted to see if it was really happening!!)

The Question was not written on the bottom... I realize this and I immediately start to get nervous and very excited... but now I have to actually read the note...

I can hardly get through it, all i can think about is "wow this is so sweet.... wait, is he gonna propose??... I can't focus on this letter but I know it's really sweet... wait what does that last sentence just say???"

"Madison Rayne Stout sounds good on paper, but lets make it official..."

I turned and looked at him with tears welling up in my eyes and all I can say is: "Really?!"

He then got on one knee and pulled out a sweet little box...

I didn't even have to think about it. I'm pretty sure he didn't get the whole question out before I started nodding my head yes and saying "YES YES UH HUH YES!!!"

After that, Robert planned for time to call our family before dinner. We enjoyed a relaxing and sweet dinner together at Vast in Oklahoma City.

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Thank you so much for reading our proposal story! We are so excited to celebrate our marriage with all of our closest friends and family. Summer 2019 couldn't come quick enough!!

- Maddie