A New Chapter

I’m going to need your help, everyone. We have to come up with a new name for Manfriend.

He’s decided that he’s sick of dating me. He no longer wants to be my Manfriend.

SO WE’RE GONNA BE PLANNING A WEDDING Y’ALL OMGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

As a native Rhode Islander I’m strongly leaning towards Buddy Fianci, but that’s a bit of a mouthful. We’ll be taking suggestions. Hit us up.

We’d been talking about getting married for a while so I could put my Pinterest boards into practice we could take an exciting new step forward together. I knew it was coming soon. I knew that ex-Manfriend (which he will go by until we get something better into play so get your suggestions in soon) had talked to my parents for their blessing over Thanksgiving. Mostly because he is not subtle and I’m exceedingly nosy. We’re a fun couple. I’ve spent the last 3 months turning to him every time he tied his shoe and yelling, “Nicholas is this it?!”

Anyways, what I’m trying to get at is that I’m hard to surprise. ex-Manfriend gets a zillion bonus points for managing to COMPLETELY bamboozle me.

Because I honestly thought that he was visiting his grandma that morning, but would be meeting me at the barn afterwards to watch me ride. I honestly thought I had a lesson scheduled for 2, but would be going early to hang out. In case my trainer is reading this, you still owe me that lesson.

As I was getting ready to head to the barn, I got a call from my friend saying that she was taking Christmas pics of the horses because it was so nice out- we could take Frankie’s after my lesson, but could I come a little earlier to hold horses beforehand?

Here I am thinking I’m so slick, like HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY FOR HIM TO PROPOSE AFTER MY LESSON WHILE WE’RE TAKING PICS HE NEEDS TO CAPITALIZE ON THIS. So I picked my outfit with care. My favorite navy breeches. My favorite tech shirt. My Team Finals hat. Actual makeup. Like a real person.

I called ex-Manfriend as I was about to pull into the barn to ask him to grab a change of clothes for the pics- and being a skilled con-man, he said he would be there in 20 and probably had a blazer in the trunk or something. I was busy blasting some seasonal Mariah and in a fantastic mood, so I let the “probably” slide.

And then I pulled up to the barn and saw balloons.

Something you should know about me: I LOVE BALLOONS. Like, a lot. My dad always brings them to the airport when he picks me up because I always tell him that a reunion without balloons is just a meeting. Balloons are my favorite.

At this point, I’m thinking that someone has decided to take their Christmas pics with balloons. Because naturally, balloons are festive and lovely and who wouldn’t want that?! I’m ready to go help out this genius soul with their gorgeous balloon-inspired photoshoot.

And then I spot a bay horse. There’s plenty of bay horses at the barn, but this one looked pretty tall. And handsome. But it could still be any of the bays, really.

And then I turned the corner and realized that it was for sure my horse. And that standing in front of him was Manfriend in the blazer that he DEFINITELY HAD and holding roses.

Which apparently Francis tried to eat

My sweet sweet boys ❤

As I was pulling up, they spotted me.

Being a rational human being, I completely froze and considered driving my car past them to park.

I just sat in here completely frozen for what felt like a VERY long time.

Then I saw my friend frantically gesturing for me to get out of the car, so I stumbled my way out and said, “Nicholas you liar.”

Nicholas you garbage liar man

Sweet words of love.

To be fair, he retorted by mockingly saying, “Nicholas is this it?!”

I feel like we’re even.

I side-eyed my way over to him to listen to what he had to say. But real talk, I was on a major adrenaline high and the phrases that I caught were “love you so so much” and “want to spend my life with you” and then he was on one knee and I pretty much dive bombed him and then took the ring before he could give it to me and got kinda aggressive about it.

Step 1: say wonderful things and propose in an amazing way

Step 2: Try to breathe around the leech on your face

Step 3: Regain your footing

 

Step 4: give me the ring before I can nab it with my grabby raccoon hands (side note: fav pic of the day. All adorable and sweet and then BAM FRANCIS LLAMA FACE)

Step 5: omgomgomgomgomg

I swear I wasn’t crying, I was just…leaking. Mighta been sweat, mighta been tears, mighta been both. Francis joined in the celebration looking for scritches.

The first true family portrait

Frankie: “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD”

There were confetti poppers waiting for us.

There was champagne.

The balloon with words on it simply said, “You’re Special.”

hahahahahahaha

Magical.

We went inside and shared some bubbly together with Francis and some of my closest friends, as we started to share the news with friends and family.

In my favorite place with my favorite person

My face is now stuck like this, sorry not sorry.

What does one do when freshly engaged? Clearly there’s only one right answer here.

You ride the horse. Without steering.

Francis take the wheel

GALLOP ON MIGHTY STEED

Less than 10 seconds after he sneezed his brains out from allergies.

brb obsessed with my new jewelry

Seriously, I could not have asked for a more magical day. I would’ve said yes no matter how he asked, but the fact that he came to my favorite place on the planet and involved my heart horse made it so far and beyond anything I could have ever dreamed of.

I’m so grateful for my friends who took all these wonderful pics to remember the occasion and helped Nicholas coordinate everything. I’m so lucky to have such generous, caring, hilarious, wonderful people to call my barn family!! My favorite little barn rat even captured the whole thing on video- including lots of her giggles.

Most of all, I’m grateful that I get to lock down this wonderful guy of mine. It’s gonna be a real awesome life together!!!