By Joseph Mauler

“Joseph, we can’t plan our first dance. One of us has to surprise the other.”

The night sky was clear, stars littering the air all above us. The hood of my car kept bending under the weight of our bodies. Maybe laying on the hood of my car would damage it, but I’ve waited for a moment like this for too long. I didn’t give it a second thought.

I don’t know how many nights I laid on the ground, looking into this sprinkled sky. Even though the view was always breathtaking, I couldn’t escape the gaping hole of loneliness I felt every night prior to this one.

I turned away from the beautiful stars to something way more beautiful.

“I guess you’re right,” I laughed. “I always try to plan everything in my life. Even the special things.”

“Well, Joseph…” She was able to look into my eyes because the stars lit up our faces. “Thank you for this tonight. This is special and you surprised me.”

“Would you like to go for a hike today? I know this one trail that leads to a pavilion and it is really pretty.” She nodded her head, fresh in love after just two months of dating me.

Getting out of my car, I slipped my small Bose MicroLink speaker into my pocket without her seeing.

The hike was a quarter-mile up a steep hill to a pavilion surrounded by a field of tall grass in the middle of the woods. The pavilion was called “High Meadow.”

“This is so pretty!” She looked into my eyes again with that look.

I slipped out my speaker and said, “Well, you said we had to surprise each other for that first dance.” Her face brightened even more.

I put on “Could I Love You Any More?” by Reneé Dominique and Jason Mraz, which had just recently released three days prior. We had listened to it way more than three times already. I think it was a pretty good song pick for our first dance.

She took hold of me and we had our first dance, underneath that pavilion on that June day, with the smell of summer fresh in our noses. I don’t remember the last time I was happy like this before I started dating her, but I’ll never forget how she took hold of my heart forever.

I already knew from the moment I fell in love with her that I was going to marry her, but now I also already knew how I was going to propose.

After the novel coronavirus in 2020, I don’t think anybody had a normal vacation. After not seeing each other for most of March and April, Tyler and I had not had a lot of time to enjoy our relationship. Finally, in June, Tyler had a great idea.

“What if I take off work next week and we have a ‘staycation?’” Tyler asked.

“What is a ‘staycation?’” I laughed.

“You act as if you are on vacation at your house. You do things you don’t ordinarily do during your normal week around your state. I don’t have to work on my business this week and it would be fun,” she explained.

“Well, you taking off work sounds fantastic,” I said through a smile because Tyler is most certainly a workaholic. “Let’s do it.”

I planned on asking her to marry me later in the summer, but the timing felt too right. I had already bought the ring three weeks ago and asked her father for permission to marry her. I decided I was going to ask her the big question by the end of the week. It was going to be in that pavilion we had our first dance like I had planned all along.

We started off our week to a rainy and lazy Tuesday, watching our favorite TV shows and cooking. But to make this proposal one that would surprise her, I had to throw her off the scent.

“Hey Ty, we should browse more for rings. Want to go to that ring shop near my house this week?” I mean, what better way to throw her off the scent?

“Sure, we can go tomorrow,” she said.

When we were at the ring shop on Wednesday, my stomach dropped because I didn’t consider the fact she could change her mind on the ring she wanted. As we entered the store, I tried to play it cool.

After browsing some rings, Tyler asked the clerk, “Can you size me? I haven’t gotten officially sized.” The man nodded and quickly grabbed the box full of every size ring.

Pick size six. Pick size six. Pick size six. 

“Well, size six is way too big for you,” the clerk said, taking off the size 6 ring and reaching back into his box. “Let’s try something smaller.”

As we jumped backed into my Mazda 30 minutes later, Tyler turned from the passenger seat.

“I want the ring we picked out a couple months ago. It’s the ring. But now we know I’m a size five.” A wave of relief washed over me knowing I did purchase the ring she wanted, as well as another wave of anxiety over the fact I bought the wrong size. I figured it was good I was asking this week because I had only bought the ring three weeks ago, so I was still eligible to return it if needed.

With full confidence that I was going to ask her in a couple of days, I texted my brother Jon, who is a professional photographer. “You free this weekend? I may want you for pictures if you know what I mean.” Because I had told him only two weeks ago I had Tyler’s ring, he responded with several exclamation marks.

Now that Jon was in to take our pictures as well as decorate the pavilion, I needed to find a way to get Tyler there without her suspecting a proposal.

On Friday, Tyler and I went to Western Maryland for our first of many road trips. Once we were comfortable in our seats for our three hour drive, I turned down the music.

“What if we had a fancy picnic this week?” I asked.

“Well, sure. I mean, where would you want to have a picnic?” she responded. “I don’t really have any dresses with me either.” She did not seem to be very enthusiastic about the idea.

“Well, I was thinking we could hike to that pavilion where we had our first dance. Actually, I looked at the calendar this morning and it has been one year since our first dance. It’s almost poetic, you know?”

“Oh! And then we can go to the farmers market and buy fresh ingredients! We should buy wine, too!” Tyler changed from indifference to eagerness. This was too perfect.

“We are about to pass the exit for your apartment, should we stop by there to pick up some dresses for you?” I asked quickly, as I saw her exit approaching on Route 695.

“Yes, it’s right here, get off!” she shouted.

With a quick check to my right, I crossed over five lanes of traffic and barely made it.

When we were browsing her closet for dresses, she pulled out an orange sundress. When I saw it, I knew that was the dress.

“I bought this just for you,” Tyler said. “I actually haven’t worn it yet.” She showed me the price tag still attached.

Everything was falling into place. The plan was that Jon and his wife, Becca, would go to High Meadow on Saturday, which was the day before I planned to propose, to set up the pavilion with sunflowers (her favorite flower). They surprised me by decorating the whole pavilion with more than I expected, including a blanket they bought that said, “Of all the walks we have taken, this one is my favorite.” That was perfect for avid hikers like Tyler and me.

On Sunday, all that was left was getting there without her suspecting anything. After we had picked up our ingredients from a local farmer’s market along with some wine, we got ready. When I walked into the bathroom, Tyler turned and looked at me.

“Wow! You are really dressed up!” she said.

“Yup,” I responded with pride.

“Do you like what I am wearing?” She looked at me expectantly wearing a casual blue dress, not the orange sundress she told me she was going to wear.

Even though Tyler looks amazing in sweatpants, I knew it was not the dress she would want to wear for her engagement photos. So, with a gulp, I said, “Well…it’s okay…”

“Do you want me to change?” Tyler asked with a surprised tone, since this was the first time I had ever said anything like this.

“Yes.” I said. “Actually yes, I do.” I had to get her into that orange sundress.

When we pulled the dress out of her bag, she exclaimed, “Joseph, it’s all wrinkly!”

“I will iron it!” I announced as I pulled out my iron in the closet and began to straighten it.

As she was getting dressed, I slid silently into the other room to grab the ring. I hid it in a drawer right beside the bed she had been sleeping in for the last couple weeks. Along with most things with this proposal, I had taken a risk.

I ran downstairs and shoved the box into the pile of blankets we were going to take.

When we hopped in the car, I noticed she was wearing her normal, sporty flip flops.

“Hey, where are your nice flip flops?” I asked.

“They are in the house,” she explained with annoyance.

“I will go get them!” I shouted as I ran inside.

Because I had been acting so strange about the clothes Tyler was supposed to wear, the 30-minute drive to the trailhead was silent and extremely awkward. I kept trying to make small talk, but I knew Tyler was analyzing why I was acting so weird.

When we were exiting the car, I realized I had made a humongous mistake. I forgot I hid the ring box in the blankets, not the picnic basket. I couldn’t carry both the blankets and the picnic basket, but I couldn’t ask her to carry the heavy picnic basket while I carried the light blankets.

I turned to Tyler with the pile of blankets, her engagement ring stuffed inside. “Here, you can carry this.”

As the realization hit me that the ring box could fall out at any moment, my heart beat faster than ever before in my life.

“You can walk ahead of me.” I said, knowing that if it did fall out, I had to be ready. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. Just get there. Don’t fall out. Just get there. Don’t fall out.

After seemingly four years of walking up the steep trail we hiked up one year ago, we finally reached the pavilion a quarter-mile from the trailhead. As we approached the pavilion, Tyler looked confused.

“It looks like someone is having an event here. Do you know what’s going on?”

“No,” I responded. “Maybe someone is having a wedding here or something. It doesn’t look like anyone is here.”

“Look, there’s sunflowers!” Tyler exclaimed with a smile as we walked into the pavilion.

“Yeah, someone really set this up,” I responded, trying to hide any sign I was behind all of this. “Look, Tyler, I know someone else is using this pavilion. But it’s too perfect. We have to dance to our song. Then, we can leave and picnic somewhere else.”

I quickly turned on “Could I Love You Any More?” on the same speaker I surprised her with last year. With my adrenaline pumping, I grabbed her hand and danced with her to a song we have listened to so many times together.

“Oh, Tyler, there’s people coming, let’s go!” I said in the middle of the song to confuse her even more. Then, I quickly said, “Oh, never mind, there’s no one there.” Even until the last minute, I was acting to make this one hell of a surprise.

As the song came to a close, I gave a very deep sigh and turned off the speaker.

“Tyler I have a demand, a confession, and a question,” I said looking into her now very confused face. “The demand is that you stand right here.” I positioned her in the middle of the pavilion. “My confession is that I did this,” I said with a smirk.

“When did you do this?!” Tyler blurted out.

“And my question is…” I grabbed the ring from the blankets and knelt in front of her, “Will you marry me?”

I always try to plan everything in my life. Even the special things.