If you’d like to catch up, before reading about our engagement check out these posts:Part 1: Jared and Miki before we were Jare Hound and MiklesPart 2: I’m not trying to play games.Part 3: Exclusivity.
Jared and I started dating in February of 2009. Our dating life was always really exciting. We had kept things very casual during our first year, and we only hung out on Tuesdays, and over the weekends. When we started this routine, people thought we were so strange. A lot of my friends didn’t know Jared, and would call him my imaginary boyfriend because he wasn’t ever really around. I saw Jared’s friends every now and again, but it really was the most casual dating you have ever seen.
When Jared and I were together it was always something going on. It was almost like a long distance relationship, even though we really only lived about 10 minutes away. Every time that we saw each other we planned something to entertain each other. It was like when a friend visit’s from out of town and you try to jam pack all these activities in. We were always texting or emailing on Friday nights to find exciting things to do over the weekend. We would go to KOA’s to camp, drive down to Vegas to see Kriss Angel, get a hotel in Wendover to gamble or lay by the pool, always checking our local venues for shows that were playing, we went to Lake Powell together, and just enjoyed every minute of each others company.
Dating Jared was perfect. Jared was my first. He was my first real boyfriend. I dated before, and consistently dated. Jared was the one who treated me like he wanted the world to see me. He loved taking me out, and he loved to take care of me. I enjoyed every second of his showered love, but I wanted to make sure I could provide the same things for him. I tried to do my part by taking him out to movies, and paying for dinner when I asked him out to eat. We really developed habits of both of us caring for one another really early on in our relationship. Jared and I never argued. We had our issues, and our disagreements, but part of not seeing each other everyday was that we really VALUED our time together. I loved seeing him, and if we argued then it wasted my time with him. We also agreed early on that we didn’t need to dig up our pasts. I wanted to live in our relationship, and create our own future. We didn’t think our pasts needed to be brought into a crisp clean relationship, so EX talk was always off limits. I know people think that talking about pasts is very important, and I don’t disagree, I just don’t think you need to go into detail. Your past makes you who you are, but it needs to be your past, it doesn’t need to be brought up every other day. The worst thing you can do is compare you relationship to another’s.
We really got into the dating swing. I felt like we were the perfect couple. After about a year, we started to hang out more than once a week and slowly in turned into an everyday hang out. Most nights we would spend together. He’d fall asleep at my apartment (I moved out of my parents about 4 months after we started dating) or I’d fall asleep at his house. Once we started to hang out and see each other all the time, we had to take a step back and redefine our relationship. I have found it to be very important to examine your relationship often. When it’s changing, notice and change with it. The worst thing you can do is expect your relationship to always be the same. It was really hard to get used to seeing each other all the time, and start to lose the butterflies you get when you don’t see each other every day. You give up some things from the “beginning” phase of your relationship, but you GAIN so many things when you start to deeper your relationship.
I think the first time marriage got brought was after we’d been dating for about a year and a half. We were driving in the car, and talking about baby names. Not really babies, just baby names. I told him that I knew what I wanted to name my first born, he said he knew what he wanted to name his as well. He wouldn’t tell me because, he told someone once, and the named their dog that name. Finally I lured it out of him by telling him that I would tell him mine if he told me his. He went first. My jaw dropped. It was the same name i had been planning to name my son for at least 5 years. I can’t tell you the name or I will get killed. You will all know when I have a baby boy. After this moment we knew we were meant to be. I know it sounds silly, because it’s just a name, but this opened the door for marriage talk.
Before we ever talked marriage, we talked about being engaged. Sometimes this step gets skipped, because marriage is so huge that you forget about being engaged. I had told Jared, and he had told me that we only wanted to be married once. Being engaged is being pre-married and it’s a ginormous deal to both of us. Neither of us had been engaged, or ring shopping or anything to do with an engagement. We had reached a point in our relationship, where we knew that we would get married. I really didn’t care when, because I felt like I was ready whenever Jared was. The last thing in the world that I wanted to do was force him to get ready before he was ready. I have always trusted and loved Jared 100 percent. I wanted him to WANT to marry me. I knew he was already committed to me, but that didn’t mean he was ready to get married. It’s a funny concept, but even if you’re in love and committed it doesn’t mean you’re ready to get married. Or at least I don’t’ think so. Jared knew that I was ready when he was. When he proposed I wanted him to be excited. I wanted him to be as excited to be engaged as I was.
Around the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, Jared started to have a lot of fun with the idea of being engaged. He hadn’t said anything to me. Everywhere we went he would grab women’s hands and ask a million questions about their ring. He would make all his sisters take off their rings at family dinners and just play with them all, and ask which were my favorites. He would send me photos of styles, and ask very specific questions. Like if I liked a certain part of the setting. You have to understand that Jared is they type of person that is an over analyzer and a total investigator. He always plans our trips, because it takes him months to decide which flights will be the best. It’s a mixture of indecisiveness, and over analyzing. After this ring hunt had gone on for a few months, I stopped getting butterflies every time we’d go out thinking.. this is it, he’s going to do it tonight. I was always wrong.
Jared asked me if I could go out to dinner with him and his clients one night. He had known about the dinner for weeks, so we’d been planning to go up to Park City and meet them for dinner, and then stay the night for a fun weekend get away. I got off work a little bit early, because we still hadn’t packed for the weekend. I drove home from work, and my stomach hurt a little bit so I thought I could squeeze in a bath before we had to make the 45 minute drive up to Park City. I had fallen asleep in the tub like I sometimes do and I heard Jared open the door, and immediately realized that meant we were supposed to be leaving and I hadn’t even packed! I jumped out of the tub, he walked in and we both started to throw a few outfits in our bag. We left the house in a panic because we really didn’t want to be late for dinner with his clients. We didn’t even check into the hotel, we just drove to pick up his clients and straight to the restaurant. Park City is much cooler than Salt Lake, and we had forgotten to bring up coats. It was March and most of the snow was gone in Salt Lake, but there was a few feet up in Park City. His clients were bundled up with coats and scarves, and I had a little 3/4 sleeve sweater on. Once we got inside Shabu Shabu (the restaurant), I started to warm up a bit. I am one of those people that once I am cold, I need to over compensate to get warm. I was freezing all through dinner, so we finally finished around 9pm, dropped his clients off and headed to our hotel.
We checked in to the New Park hotel in Park City. It was absolutely gorgeous, I mean one of those hotels that you walk into and are just in awe. There were big open windows, so you could see the entire city lit up. There was snow on the ground, and the city lights reflected off of it just looking spectacular. We slowly made our way to our room, we had to stop and look in every nook of the hotel. I opened our room, and noticed a fireplace. I ran over to it, and planted myself 2 inches away from the glass. I finally was warming up! I turned on the TV, and started to settle in. Jared ran back down to the car to put our parking pass in the window. When he came back up he had a a wrapped box in his arms.
He said he just wanted to get me a little thank you gift for coming up and supporting him with his work. I immediately started to cry, and am still tearing up as I write this. I really just felt so loved from him, that he thought to get me a gift. I opened the present, and he had gone to the buckle, somewhere that I can’t afford to shop normally, and bought me 2 adorable shirts, and a fun bracelet. I turned around to hug him, and he gave me a card to read. Jared is not a card person, so I started to cry more, because of all the thought he’d put into this gift. I took out the card and started to read it out loud. He had written this heart warming note inside the card about how excited he was that he’d found me, that he can’t imagine his life being any happier than it is now with me, and after reading the card I looked up to kiss him, and he was on one knee. His eyes were bright red from holding back tears, mine were bright red from crying hysterically. He pulled out a ring, and asked me to marry him. I had said yes before he even asked me. When I finally was able to open my eyes and stop being a hysterical mess, I looked at the ring, and it had every component from all the rings that I had loved. Jared actually had taken in a design, and added his own elements to the Limb Jewelers, and had them create my ring from his design. Now when I see my ring, I always remember how much time Jared put into making it, and how you’d only do that for someone you truly are in love with, and care for.
I loved being engaged to Jared. Even though I hated using the word, fiancé. I always would say, he’s my boyfriend, but we’re engaged. Fiance is just so.. french.We planned our whole wedding side by side, and I loved knowing this was the start to a new adventure.Come back tomorrow for the finale!
