Emily and Charlie met on eHarmony! They just celebrated their one-year anniversary. They share their very sweet and significant proposal story, how they stay sane during wedding planning, and what is means to have true joy.
Give us the proposal details! When? Where? How?
Early on in our dating relationship we discovered that his brother and my parents live in the same town. This year for Christmas, we took a road trip from Colorado to Michigan to spend the holidays with both of our sides of the family. It was such a sweet time to be all together. On Christmas day, after a long day with family, Charlie dropped me off at the house we were staying at and drove my kids to my parents’ house.
He said he wanted some time with just them, which didn’t make me think anything other than that he was investing in my kids and that was awesome. Little did I know that he took the car ride to talk to them about wanting to ask me to marry him. My first husband died four years ago, and Charlie asking the boys their blessing to marry me carries a special significance. When he dropped the boys off, Charlie also told my parents his intentions.
We are way more excited about the lifetime of adventures that we are going to share together. The weekend is just a small taste of the joy that a life together will be.
When he got back to the house, within an hour I came down with the worst stomach bug I have ever gotten. I had no idea that Charlie was making plans to propose, but the way he cared for me during an endless night of violent illness made me love him all the more. He had planned to ask me the next day but I was too weak to do anything but lay in bed. The next day was our last full day in Michigan. Charlie suggested we take the boys out to his brother’s farm for a quick tour. After walking around the farm, Charlie and I walked over to the huge oak tree on the property.
This was the tree under which his brother had gotten married and his sister’s ashes were scattered. It has huge family significance because of these two events. While we were standing there talking about the tree, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I was so stunned that it took a minute to answer, but of course I said yes. I am a bit mortified that our engagement story has to include stories of my puking—but that is our story. I can’t wait for a lifetime of adventure with this caring and thoughtful man.
What has been your favorite experience planning the wedding?
Figuring out ways we can share our love of Colorado with our family and friends and how we can incorporate the things we love to do together into our wedding.
How do you stay sane under the pressures of wedding planning?
We are keeping things as simple as possible. Our wedding will be about spending time celebrating with our friends and family, instead of about color schemes and floral arrangements. We are sticking to what matters most to us and ignoring a lot of what society says we have to have in our wedding.
What is your favorite part of using Joy for your wedding?
We have a lot of details to communicate to our guests and Joy is a great way to do that. We like that the guest can get the Joy app and we can use notifications to inform them of fun things throughout our weekend and any last minute changes to our schedule due to weather.
What piece of advice would you give couples to ensure that they use Joy to its fullest potential?
We had some of our immediate family test out our site and tell us what was unclear and what was helpful. This also helped us find some problems with the site that we could fix before sending it out to all of our guests.
At Joy we believe that even though a wedding lasts a day, joy lasts forever. What does that mean to you?
Charlie and I are really excited to have all of our friends and family in one place for a weekend of celebrating. But we are way more excited about the lifetime of adventures that we are going to share together. The weekend is just a small taste of the joy that a life together will be.
