{From Jamil's Perspective}

One of our favorite parts of Texas is the Hill Country. The culture, music, beverages, and lazy rivers make it a place that we find relaxing and soothing. However, at one point, neither Sara nor I knew that the other enjoyed central Texas or that the other even existed.

As I was slaving away in Excel one day a good friend (Steven Logan) called up and asked if I wanted to join him at the river in a few weekends. This wasn't so odd; I'd already been down there three or four times that summer. Once he started to layout the details I noticed that the people coming were mostly unknown to me and most of them had girls' names. So, being a bachelor and with nothing else to do that weekend, I signed up in a heartbeat.

Once the day finally arrived, I left work early and headed down to the river to help Steven setup. When I asked about the folks joining up that weekend, he kept pretty quiet. Well, next thing you know, a handful of girls walk in and I'm kinda star struck by this tall, blonde, fresh drink of water; Sara flows in smiling, laughing, and generally beaming. Of course, I introduce myself to all of them. The conversations went something like this:

Jamil: Hi, I'm Jamil. How are you?
Caitlin: Hey! I'm Caitlin. I'm great!

...

Jamil: Heyo, my name is Jamil. How's it going?
Megan: HI!! My name is Megan. Glad to meet you.

...

Emily: Hello Sir – my name is Emily. Pleased to meet you.
Jamil: Hi there – how's it going? I'm Jamil.

...

Jamil: Hi…
…Sara scowls at Jamil and walks away. [According to Sara, this is NOT true - I would never meet someone and behave so badly! :)]

So, of course, being a glutton for punishment, I decided to 'chase' the challenge. Sara had given me a look of daggers, and I hate when people don't like me off the bat. Later, we learned, Steven and Katy had picked the two of us to setup the whole time. A while and a few cold adult beverages later, Steven asks if Sara and I want to play bags. Reluctantly, Sara drags her feet downstairs and she and Katy play against Steven and me. Naturally, this put us on the same side of the boards. We went on playing for a bit and of course I teach Sara some of the finer points of the complicated game of cornhole/bags.

Blown away by my vast knowledge and charisma, she can't help but start to laugh at my wit and I finally got her to smile. She couldn't resist forever after all! [Sara still wholeheartedly denies this rude behavior.] Next thing I know, we're sitting by a fire talking late into the night. The next day, we floated next to each other and to the others at the river with us that weekend, we had noticeably become a little inseparable.

Finally, it was time to leave the river. What a weekend! This smokin' hot blonde seemed to really enjoy a lot of the things I do, could keep up with my sarcasm, and also tended to put me in my place when I deserved it. Unfortunately, she lived half a state away and who knew what that meant?

Well the fireworks didn't stop there. Sara and I spoke every day from then on, and a few weeks later, I drove to Houston to take her on our first date. In fact, we've never gone more than a day without talking except once, for a Christian retreat where outside lines aren't allowed. We spent the next year dating from long-distance. Over 45,000 miles on my Jeep, at least two weekends per month in Houston, 14 wedding dates, and who knows how many fishing trips later, and I finally decided enough is enough. I was going to move to this mysterious place in the armpit of Texas – Houston. [Sara wholeheartedly disagrees with Houston being an armpit.] I ended up quitting my job, bumming a room from two of my best friends in the world (Tom and Natalia Morris), and hunting a job down. Once that was secured…well that's the rest of the story.

Sara and I were planning to go to Dallas for one of her best friend's (Alli Prentice) birthday. We had been "dreading" it due to so much time spent on the weekend looking for houses, traveling for weddings, having a blast in Springfield, MO the weekend before for my sister, Lena's, birthday; all in all, just not resting like you're supposed to. I say we kept dreading it; really, I kept telling Sara how much I was dreading it because of work and stress, etc. etc. in hopes of swaying her decision.

Playing right into my plan, Sara 'made the decision on her own' to stay in town and go to her family's Galveston beach house for a little R&R and maybe some fishing. In the meantime, she had NO idea that I had been planning out the biggest night of our lives for months.

Prior to Christmas (and before I had secured a job), I built up the courage to ask Sara's parents for her hand in marriage. Once I got the blessing from her parents, I then needed to decide how to propose. Galveston is one of our favorite places to spend time together and it's one where we were able to spend a lot of quality time with me getting to know her family.

What it finally came down to was this – skip Dallas, somehow get her to believe it was her idea, secretly position around 30-40 of our closest friends and family from all over – Mineola, NYC (my sister Lara and her husband Matt!!),Houston, Dallas – around the beach house without her noticing, and set everyone up for another surprise the next day.

As I finally got down to one of our favorite fishing spots so that I could 'check the entry point,' she and I put on heavy coats and water proof boots to walk along the beach on that wonderful, clear, full moon of a February night. Sara kept mentioning this fire at the end of this uninhabited point. It was so odd that someone might be out there that night with a fire…turns out she was right! Finally, as we approach the site, she says, "Jams, this looks super romantic. We need to get out of here. I bet someone is about to get engag-- -- HUHHHHHHHH!?!??"

When she turned around, I was on a knee and proposing to the woman I had planned to marry since I was a kid. I think she then said yes, but it was a bit hard to tell. That being said, I haven't had the audacity to ask…next stop December 10th!

Jamil and I had just gotten back from a long and awesome weekend visiting his sister Lena in Springfield, MO, for her birthday. We were really worn out from our Missouri trip and from traveling for work, and another weekend away from home was sounding a little daunting. Jamil made it perfectly clear that he did not want to go to Dallas anymore for the weekend - we were supposed to be celebrating one of my best friend's - Alli's - birthday, and, since we had just seen Alli and her husband Aaron a couple weekends before when they were in Houston, I finally gave in. I called Alli and told her I wasn't going to make it and she took it surprisingly well! (First sign I should have known something was up when she didn't even give me just a liiiittle bit of a hard time.)

Friday comes and Jamil and I head down to the beach - my "happy place". We're in the car talking and listening to a podcast when I decide to call my parents at their house in Richmond to see if they need us to stop and pick anything up on the way into town. My parents don't answer. and we left town a little early so I thought that was weird, they shouldn't have been able to leave Richmond yet (Sign 2). When they don't answer at home, I call my mom's cell phone. She doesn't answer. Then I call my brother's cell phone. He doesn't answer. I text him and ask when he's going to be down at the house. He DOESN'T ANSWER. (Sign 3, 4, 5.) Finally, my mom calls me back, apologizes for "somehow" missing my call and asks us to stop and get a container of sour cream (which I later find out she didn't even need.)

As we get closer to the house, Jamil tells me that he doesn't want to listen to the podcast anymore, he just wants to listen to music. I happily oblige, and soon find myself crooning along to romantic songs from the likes of Al Green and many others. (Sign 6 - I'm totally missing ALL of these.)

It's just gotten dark as we pull into Terramar Beach, our neighborhood, when Jamil tells me he wants to go check out "the point" (one of our favorite fishing spots) before we go to the house so that he can check on the fishing conditions for tomorrow morning when he goes out to wade fish. Thinking this seems entirely normal, I agreed and requested to first text or call my parents and let them know that we would be a few more minutes before arriving. Somehow, Jamil convinced me this wasn't necessary. (Sign 7.)

We arrive to the spot which takes you out directly onto a sandy beach along the bay, and the area was pretty flooded, so we decided to get out and walk. Luckily, I brought my big parka jacket (with an awesome hood that I obsessed about as we took our walk) and my waterproof fuzzy rainboots. In my high top rain boots, mid-shin length yoga pants, "beach life" tshirt with a mermaid on it, and my giant parka jacket, I would say my outfit was pretty set for a runway show.

As we approached the beach, I was babbling on about my jacket and how great it is, not noticing that Jamil is trying to get me to go more quickly and asking me why I'm dawdling along behind him and not next to him. (Sign 8.) We turn the bend at the point and I notice a fire down at the end of the beach, and I immediately comment on the fire - how unusual it is to see a fire out here, how fun that is and how sometime we should also have a fire, and I also suggest that maybe we don't keep walking towards the fire and bother people. (Sign 9.)

Well, we continue on our merry way and suddenly Jamil is talking to me about wedding dates...maybe we would end up getting married in 2016. (Sign 10.) All the while, I'm insisting that I've actually become ok with the idea of 2017, after all, 17 is my favorite number. By now, we're zeroing in on the fire and I've noticed there are chairs and a fire, but there are no people (Sign 11) and then I start to get nervous, but not because I'm onto his plan, because I don't know where the people are or what they're doing over there and it makes me uncomfortable. Jamil persists onward. (Sign 12.)

Finally, we get RIGHT up to the fire and I notice that it's really cute, very romantic, candles, little "I love you" type of signs and I stop. (Sign 13.) I say, "Oh wow, this looks really romantic! We better go!! Someone is about to get propo-----OOOHHHH" --and there it is, it clicked at last! I turned around and Jamil told me to look at his golden retriever, Buddy's collar, and there was a dog tag there in the shape of a heart. On one side it had my name and on the other it said "Will you marry us?" I looked up and Jamil, the man of my dreams, the one I've always hoped and prayed for, was down on his knee asking me to be his, forever, in my favorite place. Of course I said YES! (And cried immediately.)

As I started to take in the surroundings I realized that there were some lanterns from my parents' beach house and the chairs that were used were two that my dad and I built together - Adirondack chairs painted bright pink and turquoise - not exactly the most inconspicuous. Somehow, though, I never caught on to what was happening - I never noticed the 13 plus signs of what was coming - until the very last minute, and that's the surprise I have always wanted. We sat in the chairs and talked and cried and laughed and drank champagne. A little while later I realized my brother, Logan, and Jamil's best friend, Tom, were hidden in a bush behind us taking photos the whole time.

We headed back to the house to see my parents and I was so happily surprised to see Jamil's parents, Sonia and George, had made the trip to be there as well. We cried and cheers'ed and I started calling friends - I thought my best friend Caitlin was still going to Dallas to be with Alli for her birthday. I had told Jamil before that I wanted my closest friends and family to be there to celebrate when we got engaged, but I just assumed that he had decided this way was better. Midway through the calls I was surprised by the arrival of Lara and Matt from NYC! I screamed for probably a solid 30 seconds and cried some more. They were an extra special surprise because we had just seen them the weekend before in Missouri for Lena's birthday.

The next morning I woke up to Jamil immediately rushing me to go take pictures on the beach while it was still the "perfect light" of the morning. I took my sweet time and could not understand why he was in such a rush - how much could the lighting make a difference for the pictures on our iPhones? So off we go with Lara and Matt to the San Luis Pass to drive around and take pictures. When it's been about an hour, I suggest to everyone that we call it quits and head back to the house because my grandma has probably arrived by now and I'd really like to see her.

As we pull down the street back to the house, I slowly start to notice that there are a lot of cars in the lot next to our house. I say aloud, "Is someone else here?" when my eyes start to focus and I see about 30 of my closest friends and family lined up along the street all cheering and welcoming us back to the house. I screamed and cried again. (This is a common theme!) Jamil had orchestrated for everyone to stay in houses close by in the neighborhood so they could be there for the surprise in the morning and enjoy the rest of the weekend with us. I spent the day with the man I love and so many of my favorite people drinking beers, having a crawfish boil and then singing karaoke at a little bar on the water in the neighborhood next to ours.

It turned out to be the perfect weekend. It was 100 times more amazing than anything I could have ever dreamed. This man knows and loves me so well and I can't wait to walk down the aisle and be his, forever, on December 10, 2016.