NEWS

Dear everyone;

Without preamble: on Sunday, January 6^th, we GOT ENGAGED. For realsies! (more on that inside joke later) And this is our engagement story.

If you've followed our Facebook link to get here, welcome to our blog, started last October as we began WWOOFing through eastern Canada. We decided it would be much easier to tell our story as a blog post, but we will be posting extra photos on good ole FB pretty soon. Thanks for coming by and helping us celebrate!

We could get into the thousands of sweet, sappy reasons we love each other and decided to get married but when people get engaged, all of that stuff kind of goes without saying and so we will spare you the details. For the record though, we have been together for four fantastic years, and while we had already talked about spending the rest of our lives together and decided that we would, in fact, like to have a wedding someday, the where/when/how questions were not broached. We've been pretty busy since 2009, and our life together was focused on more immediate and (dare I say) practical things, like graduating with our B.Sc.’s and finding jobs and travelling. However, while Moragh was away working at camp last summer, Emily decided (with much freaking out and excitement revealed to very few people) that she would take that opportunity to have an engagement ring made without fear of Moragh finding out. 

Emily took a drawing to Jeanette Walker (Walker Studios, Charlottetown, PEI – walkerstudios.ca) and Jeanette gave her back a beautifully crafted ring, of which there will be photos later in this post. Emily was able to pick up the ring just after we returned from New York (which is where this blog started), and she took it with her in her backpack as we started our WWOOFing adventures in October.  The ring stayed in Emily’s bag, with many nerve-wracking moments of near discovery, until just after Christmas when she decided that she had found the perfect proposal spot: Moragh’s family’s cottage, which is not only an enchanting setting in the winter but is close to Moragh’s heart and the best place to plant memories like this one.

Gorgeous.

So, a trip to the cottage was planned for Moragh, Emily, Emily’s twin sister Sarah, Sarah’s boyfriend Ayden, and Emily and Moragh’s mutual best friend Jessie. Sarah was “in the know” from the very beginning, and she informed Ayden of the plan the night before the trip. Jessie, on the other hand, was told of the planned proposal on the car ride up to the cottage, as Moragh was standing outside the car pumping gas, which made for a bit of stunned silence for the rest of the drive.  Sorry ‘bout that, Jess.

Two days after arriving at the cottage, Emily put her plan into motion. She wrote a series of ten clues for a treasure hunt that would eventually lead to the proposal. Ayden kept Moragh distracted outside building a snow fort while Sarah and Jessie helped to hide clues around the cottage and surrounding property. Then, as Emily tried not to throw up from nervousness, the hunt was announced to Moragh and she dove in to it like a kid on Christmas.

Reading the invitation to participate in a treasure hunt. No suspicions over why it was only her.

She was told she needed to suit up in her onesie (Emily was wearing one too). Absolutely no hesitations.

First clue: found!

Second clue: harder.

Success!

Emily made some of these pretty difficult.

This one was a word scramble.

And this one was hidden outside!

Having such a great time :)

This clue was hidden in our car, and it led to Sarah's bra ;)

Almost there, Moragh.

"This one's really hard, guys."

Reading the last clue, which was along the lines of "Won't this be a great memory to look back on, the day we did a treasure hunt at the cottage and at the end Emily got down on one knee and pulled out a ring?"

One of the rules was she had to read the clues out loud as she went...

...and the penny drops.

She said yes! And then the hugging went on for about ten minutes.

Note: what she said first was "Emily, are you for realsies right now??" and no one will ever let her forget that :)

Sarah had her head in the game!

Snowy champagne cheers-ing.

Smiles everywhere :)

Everyone so happy :)

This is more accurate though.

The ring: 14k rose gold with a 5mm sapphire in the centre flanked by trees. Our birthstones (aquamarine, topaz) are set in the roots of the trees to symbolize our beginnings and the trees become one canopy at the top. Sapphire was chosen to represent Moragh's love of lakes and rivers and Emily's love of the ocean (plus we both just like blue). The area surrounding the trees and sapphire has been textured with real PEI sand. 

huge thanks to Jeanette Walker of Walker Studios!

Predict-a-question:
No, we don't have a date set for the wedding but we hope to manage it by 2015. We plan for it to be a relaxed and fun party to celebrate our love and everyone else's. No, we don't know what season for sure; no, we don't know who we will ask to be in the wedding; no, we don't know what we're wearing; no, we don't know where the wedding will be; no, we don't know what colours we want; no, we don't know. :)

Thanks for reading, and leave a comment if you'd like! We plan to keep up on the blog this summer, as our lives pick up speed once again.

All the best,
Moragh and Emily