Broc and I went ring shopping in mid June so ever since then I've been a little anxious and he's been a little stressed. In other words, it's been a long few months since we've known we wanted to get married. Actually, a long few years. So here's how the story goes....
Erin: So a couple weeks ago I knew it was going to happen relatively soon so I decided to go ahead and schedule our engagement photoshoot so that we could get a slot because the booking fills up fast. I was sure that we were going to be engaged by then so I wasn't worried about it but as the days past, I got a little worried I'd have to wear a $9.86 ring from walmart in the photos. I kept asking Broc about the status of the ring and everything and for the first time ever, broc became a good liar. And by liar I mean he just wouldn't tell me anything.
Broc: It was three months since i had been home from my mission. I was... am poor, but still we went to a thousand different jewelers and ring shops to find the perfect ring. Of course that perfect ring ended up being a million dollars. Plan B. We waited just a little while so i could try and save up at least half of that million dollars so we could get it. The problem with that was i didn't have a job that payed that much. Not quite anyway.
Erin: He would tell me "it's coming soon" but that turned into weeks. I started to believe that his "soon" was my f-o-r-e-v-e-r. We originally drove down to vegas to pick out a ring back in june but so many factors started to limit us, order time, cost (it was like a million dollars) etc. So last week we found a ring at the mall that was a lot like the one we had originally picked out. I fell in love with it. And even more in love with Broc.
Broc: So it took me a while to earn that million dollars. A couple months actually. But it turns out all i had to do was pay a reasonably smaller down payment of two hunderded and fifty thousand dollars. This made things easier. So i went to Kay Jewelers("Every Kiss Begins With Kay") and got the ring i knew she would love.
Erin: Okay so I had to take some people's family pictures the night all of this was going to go down so Broc got a little apprehensive when I said I wouldn't be done doing that till about 8:00 p.m. I wasn't sure why he was insisting that I ask the family to re-schedule because he just said he wanted to go on a date. I still wasn't suspecting a thing. I told him that I couldn't re-schedule but thought that we could just go to my house afterwards and watch the movie "my best friend's wedding" that I bought for only $1 at the D. I. earlier that day. I thought it was a worthy purchase and a great date night movie. I thought that was the perfect plan for the evening... he had a better one.
Broc: Dang right i had a better idea than just watching "My best friend's wedding". I was proposing. So i was sitting at work just counting down the folded clothes til i could get off and go get things ready. Then My BFF Pete comes out of nowhere and surprises me at the store. I really was surprised because he lives in Salt Lake and i had no idea he was coming. So i got off right when he showed up and we decided to join forces and get this thing rolling. So we hunted down the security guard that i had talked to the day before about using the mall that night.
Erin: I was a little disappointed that Broc was working until 7:00 that night because I wanted him to come with me to take the pictures that I was scheduled to take.
Broc: Like I said earlier, I got off right when Pete showed up. I didn't work till 7:00 but she bought it.
Erin: As soon as I got done, I called Broc and he didn't sound like he had much of a plan for the evening.
Broc: I most definitely had a plan.
Erin: He asked me if I was sick of taking pictures and if not, he wanted to go to the red hill to
take just sit and take pictures together. People have asked me if I knew or started suspecting at that point because it's the "red hill" but I really didn't. Those are the kind of dates we go on so I honestly thought it was just another night. Broc picked me up and he looked dashing. All dressed in his nice vest and white shirt with jeans and his new shoes. Again, didn't get thrown off because he always looks dang good. At the red hill we just sat looking out at the view and talking about how we always wanted to end up here. How St. George is the best place on earth, because it is.
Broc: St. George is where it's at. I thought we should get the night moving so I suggested another random place. But not so random for us. We always seemed to end up on top of the Blue Bunny parking garage on main street on weekend nights in high school and it's just a place with a lot of awesome memories. We drove down there and continued to take pictures and talk about how cool all the buildings are on tabernacle by the electric theater. It was then that my friend joe, who was in on the whole thing called to confirm some details. I walked away to talk to him but did it as discretely as possible.
Erin: At the blue bunny parking garage, Broc got a call from Joe. He walked away and talked to him for a second. When he came back, I asked him what he wanted and Broc said he was telling him all about his new gun. Then Broc went off on talking about all the rights and privileges of having a concealed weapons permit and begged me to let him get one. He does this quite frequently actually.
Broc: Joe wasn't calling about a gun.
Erin: I was gettin really thirsty so we stopped at iceburg right down the street to grab a drink. As soon as I drank it, Broc insisted that we leave. I didn't know why. Still, not suspecting a thing. In the car I started talking about the upcoming engagement pictures and started asking about the ring and he got a little frustrated and told me that he didn't want to talk about it and ruin our night. All he said was that it was going to happen some time this month. I stopped talking about it.
Broc: Little did she know it was happening that night. I told her that we had one more place we should go and drove straight to the mall. She kept saying that she didn't think the mall was still open because it was 9:30 on a saturday night and there weren't any cars in the parking lot but I convinced her that it closed at 10 on saturday.
Erin: He wanted to go take pictures in the photobooths that they have in the mall. We have a ton of those photo strips from over the years. I was sure that the mall was closed but he kept insisting. We walked up to the food court and there were chains on the doors. I kept telling him to turn around and we'd do it later but he kept walking. There was an older security guard standing inside and Broc said that he knew the man from working in the mall and said he'd let us in.
Broc: He and I totally set it up earlier that day. He was in on the whole thing.
Erin: So the kind old man opened the door for us and greeted us with a big smile. As we walked down the mall, all the gates were over the doors to every store. I just kept saying "Broc, I really think we're not suppose to be here".
Broc: We walked past the jewelery stores and she joked about robbing one of them to get a ring faster.
Erin: We finally got to the other end of the mall where the photobooth is located. We stepped inside, closed the curtains, and started fidgeting with the buttons.
Broc: I realized the photobooth was off. Inside I started to panic. That was kind of the whole plan for the proposal. I was going to pull out the ring while the pictures were being taken and capture her face on a photostrip. But it was turned off, probably does with the mall. I was swiping my card over and over to get it to work. I even suggested Erin try her card.
Erin: I could tell Broc was getting a little frustrated with the photobooth and so I told him we could come back and do it tomorrow.
Broc: The key word was whiskey. When I said whiskey, Mitch Hancock would lead all the people who were hiding to come out. I said it fairly loud, Erin didn't even notice. I could hear everyone and I was worried Erin could too.
Erin: I was too busy looking through my purse for 3 dollars to try to put in the machine to hear anything.
Broc: The photobooth wasn't working but I wasn't going to let it ruin anything. I said to her that I had something to make it up to her. I pulled out the ring. Her face lit up...but in a very confused yet ecstatic expression. She kept repeating "what is that?" over and over. I pulled the curtains open.
Erin: Standing there were probably 30-40 people. All my family. All his family. All our friends. Even some people I didn't know that I later found out my dad caught them as they were leaving the mall to stay and watch. I couldn't believe it. Broc led me out of the photobooth and got down on one knee. The smile on his face I will remember forever.
Our song was playing.
He asked me to marry him.
I said yes.
And the security guard whiped a tear.
