Katie | Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:10 PM

We first met in junior high, and briefly dated during our freshman year of high school. Things were perfect until Brendan’s hand holding incident with my best friend. (still best friends!)As any freshman in highschool would deal with the situation, we broke up, and didnt speak again for three years.

A few years later in high school, we found ourselves once again in each others company. At a highschool dance on September 20th, 2002, Brendan whispered in my ear “will you go out with me?” I pretended not to hear, just to have him say the words again. We were inseperable from that point on.

After a year together in high school, I left for college in Idaho, Brendan went to college at OSU and we decided to take a shot at a long distance relationship. After four years apart, including Katie’s semester in Italy and countless miles driven between Oregon to Idaho, we were still a couple.

After graduation we both returned to Portland, and were so thankful to once again be in the same state. We were certain that this time it would be for good.

Brendan was given a family ring from his mother in December, but secretly hung onto it until February. The date of engagement wasn’t originally planned for Valentine’s Day, but due to my impatience it was bumped forward. Brendan had set the date for Friday the 15th, thinking that he would trick me into a low key Valentines Day, and then pop the question the next day. I was frustrated that we didnt have any big plans for Valentines day and he suddenly realized this.  If you ask him when he decided to propose a day early, he’ll tell you it was during the soup.

After dinner he tucked the ring in his pocket and set out to find the perfect proposal location. He drug me out of the house to “take a drive”, which seemed pointless to me at the time.  It took a while to locate the perfect place, and he finally decided upon the Willamette waterfront. The night was clear, the water was calm and I was freezing! I had no knowledge of why we were there walking around in the cold, and I wanted to head back to the warm car. It took some persuading to guide me out onto the dock, but once we were there I knew what was in store and began to feel very stupid. It took Brendan a few minutes to gather his courage (and more than a few deep breaths), and then he finally asked the question that I had been waiting so long to answer. I thought about making him ask for a second time, but I had waited too long to say YES!

On September 20, 2008, exactly 6 years after he asked me out, we were married. The ceremony took place on a beautiful farm in Canby, Oregon under large Oak trees. I wore bright green shoes with my bridal grown and all eleven bridesmaids wore simple black taffeta dresses and carried bouquets of mixed green flowers.  The barrettes in my hair were created by my dad, the pin on my dress was created by Brendan’s mom, and the pearls around my neck belonged to her grandmother.

Following the wedding was a reception in a beautiful barn decorated with lights and lanterns.  All wedding save the dates, invitations, and programs were designed by me and printed at a local print shop in Portland. Brendan’s father brewed the beer for the event, the aunts arranged table decorations. Family was key to making our wedding a success.

I cant wait to celebrate many more happy years with Brendan. Thanks for letting me share.

Tiffani | Friday, February 26, 2010 at 11:19 AM

How We Met

We actually met on the internet by random chance during my senior year of college. Adam sent me a message in August 2004; I didn’t respond until that October. After chatting online and by phone for a few weeks, we decided to get together for lunch and a movie, just as friends. I met Adam in downtown Portland. We then took the Max to the Lloyd Center Mall, where we had lunch and watched “The Grudge” (which we decided was awful), then decided to head back downtown. Next we had coffee at the Portland Coffee House and took a walk along the Waterfront and around downtown. It was getting late and we were getting hungry, so we ate a late dinner at Banning’s Pie House before I drove Adam back to his car in Beaverton. The whole date lasted 12 hours!

How He Proposed

Tiffani and I were moving to CA. She’d actually left for SoCal at the beginning of June 2007 and was coming back to get me in July. While she was in CA, my mom helped me pick out a ring. I also bought a matching necklace and my mom bought earrings to match as an engagement gift for Tiff (since we were pretty sure Tiff would say yes). Tiff being out of state was the only way she wouldn’t find out what I was up to; she is very hard to surprise and I am not that sneaky.

On our drive from Portland to Southern California, we stayed at our favorite romantic bed & breakfast - the Sandlake Inn. I hadn’t really planned out how I was going to ask her. On our second evening at the Inn, we decided to get dressed up to catch sunset at the beach in Oceanside, followed by a nice dinner. While at the beach, Tiff was climbing around on rocks and taking pictures. I wrote “I love you” in the sand below the rock she was standing on. She snapped a picture and began to climb down the other side. As she was walking around I quickly added, “Marry me?” before she walked to the side where I was standing. After a funny look from her, I pulled out the ring and asked her again. She started laughing and crying and said “Of course.”

We stayed so long at the beach that all the restaurants in Oceanside closed. We had to drive back up to Tillamook before we could find anything that was open. We celebrated our engagement over a pineapple pizza at Pizza Hut.

Betsy Horn | Saturday, March 06, 2010 at 09:06 PM

Betsy and Scott

How we met:

My fiancé, Scott, and I met on a blind date that was set up by none
other than my mom and her friend. Now, there is nothing more that a mom loves than finding a match for her daughter. Scott is a massage
therapist and my mom’s friend, Leane, was one if his clients. After
seeing him a few times, Leane told my mom about this “great, young, 
cute” massage therapist she has been going to. My mom (being the
forward person that she is) said, “Is he single?” Leane said, “I think
so.” So then my mom said, “Well, let’s set him up with Betsy.” So
Leane said she’d talk to Scott about me next time she saw him (all of
this is going on without me knowing by the way). Leane told him about me and he was interested in getting to know me so she gave him my phone number and now it was up to him to call. I, of course, knew at this point and said, “Well I doubt he is going to call a perfect
stranger, but what have I got to lose?” And sure enough, he called a
few days later. He asked me out to dinner, we hit it off, and have
been together ever since that night on October 16th, 2007.  You can
imagine how excited my mom and Leane were! And now they argue over who gets more credit!

How he proposed:

Scott proposed on August 1st, 2010. Last summer, we decided to move in together. We not only moved in together , but we bought a house! It was finally time to move in and it was a long day of packing and moving with family and friends that came to help. After everyone left, Scott said he wanted to cook me dinner that night. He made me the same dinner that he had made the very first time he had ever cooked for me, which was for my birthday almost 2 years before. He seemed pretty stressed out and nervous throughout dinner, so I did feel like something was going on.  He brought out desset, which was a big heart shaped cookie from a local bakery. Written on the cookie was, “This is the first day of the rest of our lives.” Then he told me he
had another surprise in the bedroom. I walked in the bedroom and there were candles lit all around the room and rose petals on the bed. In the middle of the bed there was a framed picture of two kids that said, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be. There was also a white ring box and he said, “Open it.” I opened it, but there was no ring inside. I turned to him and he was down on one knee, holding the ring. “Will you marry me, my love?”, he asked. The ring is beautiful and the best part is that the diamond in the ring is from my grandma, who passed away last year. She had left a diamond pendant for my mom and my mom offered it to Scott a few months earlier if he wanted to use it for a ring for me.

We cannot wait to be married this summer, August 1st, exactly one year from the day we moved into our new home and he proposed.