Jenna & I would like to welcome Steve & Danielle to the celebrate! family!! We are so excited to share their special day with them. Read below to learn a little more about the cute couple and Steve's adorablely sweet proposal to Danielle.
Steve proposed on July 4, 2009. A few weeks before, he told me that we weregoing on a "surprise vacation" for the July 4th weekend and ended up takingme to the Sanderling Resort and Spa in Duck, NC. After a suspenseful weekleading up to the trip and drive there (during which I was guessingdifferent destinations based on the route we were taking) we arrived aroundnoon on Friday, July 3rd. That night, we had an amazing dinner on the beachdeck of the resort and were able to relax and enjoy being in paradise. During dinner, Steve suggested that we get up early the next morning towatch the sunrise on the beach, something we had never done togetherbefore. Of course, I was excited about doing anything where we could get some great pictures, so I was all in! Saturday morning, we woke up around 5:20 am, quickly grabbed a blanket, beach chairs and of course a camera and made our way down to the private beach. Before we could even set up our chairs I was excitedly taking pictures of the beautiful surroundings. Steve, who (after having to put upwith my picture taking habit) is normally a good sport with photographs, was even more enthusiastically than usual encouraging me to take
self-timer pictures from the conveniently located post at the bottom of the steps down from the dunes on to the beach. I was so excited about us taking perfect pictures of the sunrise that I was oblivious to the fact that he was using the time to finalize his proposal plan! Finally, he suggests we take one more picture, and walks to set up the self-timer. But instead of pushingthe self-timer, he puts the camera on video, walks back over, gives me a big kiss, gets down on his knee and asks me to marry him! We were the only people on the beach- it was very romantic and absolutely perfect. After the big moment, we were able to finish watching the sunrise, and share some very special time on the beach just talking about the excitement of our future together. Of course, at this time, it was about 6:30 am! So we headed back to our private balcony, celebrated with some champagne and chocolate covered cherries and strawberries (hand made by Steve!) and waited another hour or two to call our families and friends to share the wonderful news! (A special thanks to the guys in California for answering our call at 7:00 am their time, after a big night! Love you guys!) Before we had arrived at the resort, Steve had also arranged for us to get couples massages later in the morning. So around 11:00 we went to the spa, got massages and relived the magic of the morning. Then we hit the beach and enjoyed the Crab Fest event at the Sanderling for dinner. Blue crabs and shrimp... it was delicious! That night, we met up with Courtney & Jeff Fleming and Cortney & Clayton Allen for fireworks at the Fleming Beach houseand surprised them with the news! It was hard not to call them all day, butc elebrating with them in person was even better. It was an amazing, perfectday and a weekend we will never forget!