Our Engagement Story In Zion National Park

Wow! It’s been two years since Aaron proposed! We’ve been promised to each other for two whole years and there’s no one I would rather be doing life with. Loving him has by far been the best decision and best part of my life. I’m so grateful for how far we’ve come and all that we’ve learned along the way.

Before Aaron and I go on to tell you about our engagement and how he kept it a secret from me, you should know I’m not very good with surprises. If it’s a surprise I’m supposed to keep from someone, chances are, I’m going to spill it. I get too excited and somehow it always comes out because I just can’t help myself. If it’s a surprise for me and I feel it’s coming, I ask all the questions and beg to find out the surprise rather than just be patient until it comes. I think that’s part of my FOMO (fear of missing out). I don’t like missing out on the fun of knowing the surprise. Anyways, so if you’re going to surprise me, you have to work real hard to cover all your bases and that’s exactly what Aaron did.

The Ring

It didn’t take long, once we began dating, for either of us to know that we wanted to marry each other. Prayers were answered and everything just fit like a glove. We officially began dating in early December of 2015 and the next month in January, we started looking for the ring.

This is one of my favorite parts of our engagement story. I’m not the type of girl that had a “my future wedding” board on her Pinterest or always knew what kind of engagement ring she wanted – which there’s nothing wrong with that, I just had never even thought about any of it. So when Aaron & I started talking about marriage, we decided it would be a really sweet thing to select the ring together. We went to a bunch of different stores until we finally landed at Brian Gavin Diamonds. Brian sat with us and talked us through his diamonds and cuts so that we could choose the ring that was just right for me.

I loved going through this experience with Aaron. The level of interest he gave to the whole process really showed me how much he cared and how much he wanted me to be happy. Even in such a little thing like a ring (because we know there are many more important things in life than jewelry) he wanted to make sure it was something I would be happy with and he wanted to get me something special that I would love to see on my hand every day for the rest of my life. It’s no surprise to me that we fell in love with the same ring and for the same reasons. 

The Trip

After we chose the ring, Aaron said to me, “Alright, from here on out, the rest is going to be a surprise, so DON’T ASK ME QUESTIONS.” Haha. He calls me the Question Queen because I always want to know the “how” and the “why”. He says, “If your questions were a hammer, my brain would be all over the floor right now.” Haha. I just wanna know things, guys. So while Brian Gavin Diamonds were custom making my ring, Aaron’s brother Phil had made plans with their parents to go on a Spring Break trip to Zion National Park in Utah and he invited us to come along! I was so excited!

In the weeks leading up to our trip, Aaron realized that I would start thinking he might propose on this trip, so he started laying the groundwork for throwing me off. He would tell me, “They’re still working on your ring” or “I just got an email that they’re still not done with your ring.” All the while, I knew he was talking to my sister, parents and his brother about whatever details and it was killing me! I did my best not to ask questions and to just let it be, but I’m telling you, it was killing me. I believed him when he said the ring wasn’t ready, though, and I just wrote it off. I’m going to let him take it from here to tell you some of the surprise secret details. Go ahead, baby.

The Preparation

She thought the ring wasn’t ready, but the ring was ready and that was all a part of my plan. I wanted it to be a complete surprise. Like Quimi said, the weeks leading up to the trip I had begun dropping little hints about how they were behind on production and we were still finalizing the design, pretty much anything that would lead her to believe that it was taking longer than expected. I knew that if it was going to be a believable story, I had to plant that seed in advance and just give it time to grow.

So, I had actually been to Zion the year before with my brothers and dad. We went to so many different areas of the park on that trip, and it gave me a lot of ideas on where the proposal could potentially happen. I remember calling my brother Phil and us discussing the potential of me doing it atop Angels Landing. We were both excited about that possibility, but then I remembered that Quimi didn’t have much hiking experience and is a little afraid of heights, and well….Angels Landing is a 1,488-foot tall rock formation with its highest peak being 5,790 feet in elevation.The thought of having this elaborate proposal planned at the top of this mountain, only to have it all crash and burn because we never made it to the top wasn’t a good feeling. That’s when I remembered another spot we had visited, Canyon Overlook. After Phil and I talked about it and walked through how it could potentially happen, I knew this was the spot. I also wanted a way to make it special and memorable. Much like latitude and longitude coordinates are unique to only one place in the entire world, that’s Quimi and I’s relationship – completely unique and unlike anything else. So since I had been there before, I used Google Maps and Google Earth to find the exact coordinates of the rock where I knew I wanted to propose. Then, I contacted Brian Gavin Diamonds to have them engrave the coordinates on the inside of her engagement ring. I wanted her to be able to look inside that ring at any point in the future and remember the exact location that our life changed…for.ev.er. 

The Proposal

So we flew into Las Vegas and I mentioned to Quimi in passing (trying not to make it a big deal) that I had some paperwork mailed to a near by FedEx location that I had to sign for a client. Now, I work for a digital marketing agency, and I remember her asking “Why do you have to sign something? I thought you do digital stuff?” To which my response was, “Well, when we have new clients we need a hardcopy of the paperwork and since the only other person who could sign is out, I needed to have it sent here.”

She believed me. What she didn’t know is that I had the ring custom made in Houston and then shipped to Las Vegas. I had seen pictures of it, but I wasn’t going to physically see it and hold it until I picked it up at the FedEx location. So I was a little nervous. We got there, I parked the rental car, grabbed my backpack and said, “I’ll be right back, this will only take a few minutes.” I then went in, signed for her engagement ring (see, I did sign something), opened and checked it out briefly, then threw it in my backpack, went back to the car, put the backpack in the trunk, got in the car and of course, the Question Queen started hammering away. “How did it go?” she said. I said, “It was fine, I just had to sign something” which I did, haha. Then I asked her if she wanted to go to the Hoover Dam and because she gets excited like a small puppy, she lit up and said, “Yeah!”

Later that day, we met up with the rest of my family, explored Las Vegas and got ready to head to Zion National Park the next day. In the morning, the family jumped in the car and we made our way. I told my family that because Zion is usually so packed, I would probably have to wait to propose the next day since it was likely that there wouldn’t be any parking near the entrance to the Canyon Overlook Trail. However, as we were driving in, there was one parking spot available and it was the one closest to the entrance! (Could this be fate? Dun dun dun.) I parked, told Quimi I wanted to show her this quick mile hike and that she should change into her hiking boots. Meanwhile, I was getting the ring from my backpack and showing my family. The Utah sun was so bright and the sky was so clear that the ring sparkled in a way that was beyond what I could have imagined.

We started on the hike like normal and when we got to the summit overlooking the canyon, Quimi wanted to take a picture on this one rock that was not the rock I had chosen. (Remember, I had specific coordinates that were important to the proposal) So I said, “Oh, let’s go over here to this spot”. We took a couple pictures and then just started to look out to the great expanse of the canyon. It was glorious standing in awe of creation and holding Quimi at my side. I started my proposal there by telling her how much I love her and how much she means to me and I remember she didn’t think anything of it because we always say those things to one another. But then, when I got on one knee, she realized what was happening, the waterworks started and as you know, she said YES! I put the ring on her finger, we took pictures and my family joined in with us to pray at that spot. It was such a special time and it all went perfectly! Whew!  I’m going to pass it back to Quimi now.It really was perfect. I was so impressed by the attention to detail and thought that Aaron put into engraving the coordinates of our engagement location on my ring. It was so cute, so nerdy, so creative and so him. I loved it. The rest of the trip was absolutely incredible. We explored Antelope Canyon, caught the sunrise at the Grand Canyon, hiked through Bryce Canyon and I even conquered my fear of heights as we climbed Angels Landing!
The best part was that because Aaron proposed at the beginning of the trip, we experienced it all as an engaged couple and it meant so much more. I am so thankful for the sweet and thoughtful man the Lord has given me. It was so fun for Aaron and I to reminisce and look back on our adventure last year, thanks for reading our engagement story! We are excited for whatever lies ahead, together.

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, ‘A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!” – Robert Browning