If you follow me on Instagram you would have already seen the news.
After eight blissful years together, Luke and I are engaged.
I wrote a small caption on Instagram and the response was so warm and filled with so much love that I wanted to try and write down how all of this has me feeling. After all, this space was created those many moons ago to document an exciting new chapter in my life (launching my own online store and business) and to connect with my community. Years later it still hasn’t changed, just my soon to be marital status, and this is most definitely another exciting new chapter in my life.
The short answer to the burning question “How did he propose?” is that we were in a boat, on a lake, underneath some cherry blossom trees in Tokyo. The long answer would be that everything leading up to that particular moment had been serendipity, without us even knowing it.
We had been floating through the very same lake earlier that morning but decided to leave as there were just too many people. We explored a nearby park but decided to head back to the lake for sunset. Upon our return, we discovered the lake had been shut down due to the bad weather, but Luke and I were optimistic (or equally stubborn) the storm would pass. We were the first in line and an hour later, after a very long line had amassed, they re-opened the gates with us gleefully being the first on the water.
We floated through the lake with absolutely no one around and watched as gentle gusts of wind passed through and danced in harmony with the cherry blossoms trees. The lake started to turn shades of pink as its waters began to fill with fallen Sakura petals. I honestly felt as if we were the luckiest people in the world – we were literally floating through what looked and felt like my version of cloud nine.
Moments after taking our last photos I hear Luke say “I just want to take one more photo underneath this tree before we head back”. We glided underneath one of the biggest cherry blossom trees on the lake, I hear Luke call my name, I turn around, and he’s holding a ring saying the words “Will you marry me?”.
To say he caught me off guard is an understatement. Yes we’ve been together for a long time but we’ve always said we’re just too busy with our careers to even think about planning a wedding. I proceed to have an out of body experience, potentially go cross-eyed, and exclaim “Of course I will!” before attempting to climb over the seats towards him. As if keeping balanced or staying upright during a moment like this is hard enough, we faced the problem of trying to do all of this in a rocky boat. Luke was trying in vane to be knelt on one knee and I’m so uncoordinated that we laughed in disbelief that neither of us fell overboard.
Now that would have been a pretty funny ending to our story.
Moments later sirens were heard, the storm came rolling back in and we made our way to return the boat as the lake started to clear and we felt the rain on our skin. It’s like the heavens cleared the lake just for us, for this moment, or as I said, it was just pure serendipity.
N x
Photographer: My fiance (insert hearts in eyes emoji face here)
Note: My hair is most definitely red here and I miss it terribly.
