{"id":1506,"date":"2011-05-01T20:09:07","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T01:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2011-05-01T20:09:07","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T01:09:07","slug":"the-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/the-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Josh<\/a>So, without beating around the bush, I popped “THE” question to Jen about 1 month ago (4\/2\/2011)! And, fortunately, she gave me the answer I was hoping for and well, to be honest, expecting: “Yes!”\u00a0 Actually, it was something more like “YES…yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!”\u00a0 Talk about a comforting answer from her, especially since I expected her to be crying quite a bit and wouldn’t be able to even verbally respond!<\/p>\n

With something this big, I don’t feel I can just touch on the highlights, I feel I need to try and tell the whole story.<\/p>\n

So without further ado, here’s the proposal story (the build up to the proposal, and what got us talking about marriage)….<\/p>\n

Something changed for me around Christmas 2010.\u00a0 We spent a considerable amount of time together and with each other’s families.\u00a0 Jen was shocked to hear recently that I knew she was “the one” after about 1 month of dating, but that’s okay, it made our time dating more fun!\u00a0 Anyways, when Christmas ended, I knew I’d be looking to make her mine soon…very soon.\u00a0 As Jen would probably tell you, similar thoughts began entering her mind just a couple weeks later.\u00a0 There was no pushiness or intimidation between us, just perfect…Godly timing.\u00a0 So, starting sometime in mid-January, Jen and I began talking and praying (individually & together) about marriage.\u00a0 Neither of us expected this so soon, but the process was right, the path didn’t wander, we felt we were being (and still are) led down this road.<\/p>\n

Now, for those of you that know Jen and I pretty well, we aren’t a spontaneous type of a couple, especially with something that has this great a magnitude (as we both agree that marriage is for life, there’s no “out-clause”).\u00a0 Therefore, we were grilling each other with questions: text messages, in person, late night chats, phone calls, emails, you name it!\u00a0 However, that wasn’t our only means to a decision.\u00a0 Each of us talked to married folks, unmarried, divorced, and remarried.\u00a0 The single thread that we really focused on was mature Christians. Everybody has a past with regrets, but everybody has great decisions and accomplishments.\u00a0 Therefore, we wanted to see what their Christian perspective was in regards to marriage, each of us individually, and as a couple.\u00a0 We learned a lot about marriage, new questions to raise to one another, and new questions to ask ourselves individually.<\/p>\n

I am not going to get into the specific questions we asked of ourselves and each other, those are fairly personal, but I will say and advise anybody out there to open up and be vulnerable if discussing marriage.\u00a0 That process brought us closer together.\u00a0 So, we finally realized that there wasn’t much else we could ask each other that would keep us from marrying each other.\u00a0 Jen and I also aren’t ones to see a big sign in the sky from God telling us “YES” or “NO”.\u00a0 We knew our passions, love, and purpose for God were aligned and we didn’t have any reservations about marriage; so we decided that we were going to do this!\u00a0 Now, all it seemed was that we needed to find her a ring!<\/p>\n

With regards to an engagement ring, it’s safe to say I knew basically nothing.\u00a0 Jen knew just a bit more than I did, so she suggested we go shopping together.\u00a0 At first, I admit, this sounded a bit odd to me, but she let me know many of her friends did this so that the guy could get an idea of what he was buying and the girl could determine what she actually wanted.\u00a0 Ok, fair enough I thought.\u00a0 So we made a few stops, talked to a few friends, and Jen finally decided on what she would like.\u00a0 In typical Jen-style, she pretty much knew what she wanted, with only a slight amount of room for me to get creative.\u00a0 Worked for me, less for me to screw up!<\/p>\n

Now, the hard part for me in buying the ring, was that I wanted to find the best deal. It worked out that I knew what she wanted and exactly what I was going to get for her.\u00a0 It also played into my hands that I’m a planner looking for a good deal.\u00a0 This gave me an “infinite” amount of time to “research” (as I would continually tell Jen) for a ring, to keep her guessing when I’d pop the question.\u00a0 So, after shopping around a bit, my friend Tom took me to Trinity Jewelers.\u00a0 Great service, great setting, great diamond, great price!\u00a0 And, without Jen having a clue, I had talked to not only her dad but mom also, and had a ring, within one week of still trying to figure out what she exactly wanted!<\/p>\n

I picked the ring up on a Thursday evening and planned to pop the question that Saturday.\u00a0 However, there was no way I’d just hand over the ring to Jen and ask her to marry me.\u00a0 We’re completely in love and I had to make it fun for the both of us.\u00a0 And I knew Jen would like something fun also; something with a good story she could share for years to come!\u00a0 So, the proposal planning started well before I had the ring.<\/p>\n

Monday, April 4th was my birthday.\u00a0 I wanted to propose on Saturday, April 2nd.\u00a0 How would I plan a big proposal without tipping Jen off any time before Saturday?\u00a0 Turns out I had to enlist the help of her parents and mine.\u00a0 Once I asked for permission, I ran ideas past them.\u00a0 I decided I’d propose at Whitehall Camp (outside of Nashville, probably Jen’s favorite place in the world).\u00a0 But I still needed to not tip Jen off.\u00a0 So, working with my parents, we planned a fake birthday dinner for me on the evening of Saturday, April 2nd.\u00a0 So about 1.5 weeks before Saturday, I told Jen about the “dinner” plans at my house so that she’d keep the date open.\u00a0 I also told her I was going shopping for a new driver to add to my golf clubs and that I wanted her to go with me, around 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Perfect plan, I had Jen reserved for an all-day extravaganza!\u00a0 Or so I thought!<\/p>\n

One thing I’m learning about women…they’re always right, whether or not they are or not!\u00a0 So Jen, in all her wisdom, decided to tell me the Friday before the proposal, she was going to visit her sister, go to lunch with her, and had a hair appointment on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.\u00a0 Jen then said we could go shopping around 2 p.m. or later.\u00a0 She ended up forgetting I even set a time!\u00a0 There’s no way I didn’t set a time, I needed her to be free to execute “The Plan”!\u00a0 Well, she told me about this nonsense and wasn’t one bit happy about my stubbornness to not let her plans derail mine! I gave her a guilt trip about it being my birthday, the sales would be all picked over, blah blah blah.\u00a0 She bought it, thank goodness, but I thought she’d be miserable and that would ruin the proposal!<\/p>\n

Well, the next day, she apologized for scheduling things on my birthday; I even let her apologize, and it was hilarious!\u00a0 I did feel bad though because I’d normally never care, but I needed her to give me that extra time during the day! \u00a0Now, I’m not very artistic but I can be creative in my own special way!\u00a0 Luckily for me, Jen appreciates it!\u00a0 So, I ended up picking Jen up around 12:30 p.m.\u00a0 I had lunch planned into our schedule, but we didn’t leave until 1 p.m. because well, she still felt time didn’t matter today.\u00a0 It technically didn’t, but it just would make our day a bit more manageable.<\/p>\n

So, it is 1 p.m., let me give you the general proposal background and plan.\u00a0 I wanted to make it personal for her and fun, as I’ve already mentioned.\u00a0 Going back to when I asked Jen to be my “official” girlfriend, I wrote it out in individual letter magnets on her refrigerator.\u00a0 I also told her I loved her for the first time in letters on her refrigerator.\u00a0 Not that those are romantic, but they just turned out to be timely and fun\/funny at the times we were having those conversations.\u00a0 I didn’t want to ask her to marry me with those letters, but I wanted to “write it out”.\u00a0 Therefore, letters strung up at Whitehall, at her family’s camp, would be the way.\u00a0 So for the day, I decided we’d stop at different places where we’d been on a memorable date or multiple dates.\u00a0 I needed to take Jen 1.5 hrs. up to Whitehall without her wondering why I’m driving straight there too!\u00a0 I knew I’d tip her off at some point during the day but at least she wouldn’t know when, where, or how I’d be proposing.\u00a0 As it turns out, she had herself so convinced that I didn’t have a ring nor had I talked to her folks yet, she thought I was just being funny when I told her we were playing a game that Saturday afternoon!\u00a0 Heck, 15 minutes before I even proposed, she was telling me that I needed to “research” faster and buy a ring, she didn’t want to wait another month until I got back from my 2 week work trip and vacation that was coming up the following week!<\/p>\n

I came up with 6 stops that we’d make during the day and at each location, I’d give Jen a letter that would ultimately help fill in the blanks of a sign I had strung up at Whitehall at 7 a.m.!\u00a0 The sign I strung up read “_ILL Y_U M___Y _E”.\u00a0 When Jen and I got into the car to go “golf club shopping”, I asked if she’d like to play a game.\u00a0 She happily agreed!\u00a0 We opened the glove compartment and there were rules for a game, she signed the rules like a good girlfriend and basically gave up all rights, privileges, questions, and her cell phone to me for the next 5 hours!\u00a0 For signing, she got a riddle.\u00a0 For each stop she’d get a riddle and would have to guess where we were going.\u00a0 Our first top was “Rita’s”. Once there, we shared an Italian Ice…and yes, before lunch, she was so confused!\u00a0 She also received her first letter, “R” for Rita’s.\u00a0 At each stop I also took her picture holding the letter, I knew she’d enjoying seeing pictures of the day after we got engaged! Also, at each stop, I made her take the letters with her, that way, once at the final stop, which she didn’t know where it would be, she wouldn’t be surprised that I’d be telling her she’d need the letters to help spell something!<\/p>\n

Following Rita’s, we stopped at Mellon Arena and Jen got an “M”.\u00a0 Mellon was one of our first dates to watch a Pens playoff game.\u00a0 We then stopped at Rachel’s Roadhouse in Mercer and she got another “R”.\u00a0 We had ate lunch there the previous summer on our way back from Whitehall and it was a popular stop for Jen and her friends while in college at Grove City.\u00a0 After Rachel’s, we went to the beautiful scenic Overlook in Kennerdale and she got an “O”.\u00a0 We had visited the overlook while at Whitehall the previous summer.\u00a0 The next stop was the Allegheny River where Jen got an “A”.\u00a0 We had gone to dinner at a restaurant along the river, rollerbladed, and spent some time along the river.\u00a0 So at this point, she’s getting pretty excited, and is having a lot of fun.\u00a0 We stopped along the river in Emlenton, PA, only a few miles from Whitehall.\u00a0 Jen amazingly didn’t want to run the show and never mentioned stopping there even though she loves Whitehall.\u00a0 So, her last riddle for the day actually told her to play a CD.\u00a0 She started getting extremely excited and couldn’t find the CD, I just told her to open and look into the folder she had!\u00a0 So we popped in the CD and “Starry Night” by Chris August came on.\u00a0 This song has some meaning to us as it reminds us of star gazing at Whitehall w\/ her folks and her dad’s infamous “WOOOOOOSSHHHHHHH!!” comment (a story for another time!).\u00a0 Jen started screaming “Whitehall! We’re going to Whitehall!\u201d\u00a0 I’m so glad she was excited, little did she know, she’d be getting proposed to in a few minutes!<\/p>\n

We arrived at Whitehall after the song finished playing and I pulled into the front of the family’s camp.\u00a0 Now, I got up at 7 a.m. that morning, drove to Whitehall and strung up the sign.\u00a0 I purposely made sure she couldn’t read the sign from anywhere but on the porch.\u00a0 However, the back of the letters would be noticeable.\u00a0 We parked and I noticed she saw the letters but she didn’t react too much to them, which was fine by me, I’ll take her by surprise!\u00a0 We got out of the car and she knew to bring all her letters with her and as I followed her onto the porch, I reached into my back pocket to get the ring ready.\u00a0 Jen got onto the porch and read the sign; she made out the phrase, turned around, both hands covering her face and crying, to see me bending down on one knee, asking if she’d marry me.\u00a0 To my surprise she was able to respond, she even came down to my level!\u00a0 So the rest is pretty much history.\u00a0 She cried, she jumped repeatedly up and down, she made me tell her “everything” about the plan, we called family & friends, took pictures, etc.<\/p>\n

Jen will tell you she thought I could be proposing throughout the game but she was so convinced I hadn’t talked to her folks or actually bought a ring, she convinced herself it wasn’t going to happen. Even if she knew I was going to propose, this would have been fine by me.\u00a0 I knew I’d keep her guessing with the where, when, and how.\u00a0 We had come to the decision to get married together, so asking her to marry me wouldn’t be a shock, just the proposal would be.<\/p>\n

We’re super excited about the engagement and have so many dreams that we want to pursue together.\u00a0 We know bumps in the road will come.\u00a0 Heck, trying to plan the wedding within a 5 month window has already caused us frustration, but that’s okay, we have and will work through it.\u00a0 We believe and know that with God’s leading and continual reliance on Him, differences that we experience will be resolved with a mutual Christian respect and love for one another.<\/p>\n

We can’t wait!<\/p>\n

Be sure to check out our Proposal Pictures<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, without beating around the bush, I popped “THE” question to Jen about 1 month ago (4\/2\/2011)! And, fortunately, she gave me the answer I was hoping for and well, to be honest, expecting: “Yes!”\u00a0 Actually, it was something more like “YES…yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!”\u00a0 Talk about a comforting answer from her, especially since I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}