I GET TO MARRY MY BEST FRIEND! It’s been almost 3 weeks now since Christian proposed, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. God is SO good, y’all.
It was easily one of the best days of my life. Looking back on photos, I get all in my feelings again because it was honestly perfect to me!
I wanted to dedicate a whole blog post to how Christian and I met, how he proposed, and some details about the ring (because that’s what most of my DMs and messages have been about, haha).
I asked over on my Instagram what questions you guys would want answered in this blog post. So I compiled the most common questions & I’m dividing them up into 4 categories: About Us, The Proposal, The Ring & Wedding Plans!
ABOUT US
How did you and Christian meet?
This story is always fun to tell…. He’s my best friend’s brother. Taylor and I have been friends for about 6 years now and over time we became BEST friends. Even if I wasn’t marrying her brother (lol) she’d be a bridesmaid without question. She’s one of the most loyal friends ever and I love her!
I always knew Taylor’s brother, Christian, had a liiiittle crush on me. He’ll be the first to admit it, trust me. We’re talking a crush that started back in like 2014, y’all. And he would always try to get Taylor to set us up. I totally knew he had a crush on me, but I wasn’t super interested. He wasn’t my usual type (he was a LSU football player & I’ve never been interested in athletes) and I wasn’t even single most of the time. Plus, I was NOT trying to mess up my relationship with my best friend. That could get awkward real quick.
I’m a BIG believer in God’s timing, and our story has done nothing but CONFIRM to me that God knows what He’s doing… even when we don’t realize it. I know without a shadow of a doubt that both Christian and I had to go through some life experiences (some good, some really bad) before we would be ready for each other. If we had dated in college, we never would have worked 😂 We both grew up SO much in the couple of years after we graduated college because of stuff we went through. I could go into more detail about all this, but it would be a novel.
So let’s just skip to 2019… we both happened to be single, and Christian moved back to Baton Rouge to join LSU’s football coaching staff. Randomly one day I decided that I should give Christian a shot. He took me out on a date to a super nice steakhouse restaurant and we hit it off immediately. We were the last ones at the restaurant that night because we could not stop talking each other’s ears off. I remember getting back to my apartment that night and thinking “I’m screwed. I’m going to fall in love with him.” And that’s exactly what I did.
How long have you been together?
Christian and I have been together for 11 months. Some people think that is super quick, some people think that’s totally normal. Prior to this relationship, I would have said “What the heck are you thinking?? That’s barely any time at all.” I never thought I’d get engaged to someone I had been dating less than a year.
But both of us had full confidence in knowing we wanted to spend forever together. A lot of factors played into this (like knowing his family for so long, having the same beliefs and values, etc.) but we both knew 100% we wanted to end up as husband and wife.
How did you know he was “the one?”
It’s hard to sum up an answer for this, but they say “when you know, you know.” I never understood this because my mind is much more practical and I couldn’t wrap my head around that. But I just knew with Christian. He felt like home.
Plus, both of us are incredibly close with our family. So the fact that I fit into his family so well, and vice versa with him and my family, it just all felt so right.
How old are you guys?
I’m 24 and Christian is 25.
THE PROPOSAL
How did he propose?
We love to have “date days” in New Orleans. It’s only an hour away from Baton Rouge so we love to get away there when we can.
So he planned for us to have a NOLA date day on July 2, including dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Jack Rose. The day came, we had a great time like usual, and we were finishing up dinner at the restaurant. He mentioned wanting to grab drinks at this rooftop bar he knew. I got super suspicious about this because I’m the one that knows New Orleans better (I’m from Louisiana, he’s from up north!) so I was confused about this mysterious new bar I had never heard of.
We got in the car and drove a few blocks, and he pulled up to the Henry Howard Hotel. I adore this hotel! It’s quintessential New Orleans and SO pretty. But I was SO confused why we were there.
The hotel butler greeted us like he was expecting us and then gestured us upstairs. Christian led me through one of the suites and out on to the big beautiful balcony. There were flowers and candles everywhere!
Neither of us can remember what he said when he was down on one knee, but whatever it was, I’m sure it was perfect! And I was definitely crying like a big baby. It just felt so surreal – I just got engaged to my best friend!! And a photographer was hiding behind the balcony swing the whole time.
And then about 2 minutes after he proposed, I heard “SURPRISE!” My mom, my aunt, Christian’s mom, and Taylor all popped up in the window. They had been hiding the whole time! So then we cried, hugged, took a million pics, and popped open some bubbly, of course!
Was it a complete shock or did you know it was coming?
We had talked about getting engaged and he asked my family for permission to marry me, so I definitely knew it was approaching! I knew it would be at some point this summer.
THE RING
Did you guys ring shop together before, or did he do it all on his own?
I didn’t know much about engagement rings prior to this, so I definitely had to do a lot of research on Pinterest. I told him the only thing I knew for sure I’d want was a square-shaped center diamond (like cushion or princess) and I wanted a halo. But I didn’t want to get much more specific than that because I wanted him to take some creative liberty with the design process, so that way it felt like *both* of ours.
From there, he and my mom worked together to come up with a custom designed ring I would love! And they nailed it. It means so much to me because I know how much went into it! It couldn’t be more perfect.
Can you go into detail about the ring and the style of the setting?
It’s a cushion cut center diamond with a halo (16 diamonds in the halo). And then it has double bands on each side (16 diamonds on each side, 32 total).
Again, I’m not super knowledgeable on rings so I basically just listed what I read off the appraisal sheet, haha. So feel free to message me if you have any more questions!
WEDDING PLANS
Do you know when or where you’re getting married?
We’ll be getting married in either New Orleans or in the 30A area! And the date is totally up in the air right now. We have just started the wedding planning process, but I’ll be sure to document allllll of it on Instagram and here on the blog!
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading!! I’m so excited for this chapter of our lives and glad I get to bring you all along with us ☺️ If there’s any questions I didn’t cover, you can comment below or message me on Instagram!
Love y’all!
Karli
*****All photos by Sarah Ward*****
[…] We’ve had so many fun date days there, it’s where he proposed (full blog post on that here if you want to read about it), and now it will be where we get […]