FROM THE GROOM // Alice and I got engaged on December 6th, 2014. Up until that point, 2014 had been a difficult year for us. Alice’s Mom had passed on that Oct. leaving us devastated. Understandably, Alice was dealing with a lot during that time.

Two weeks prior to Dec. 6th, I had mentioned to Alice that I wanted to take her to Vista Hermosa park to take some pictures with the DSLR camera that she had bought me. The park has a bench that sits on top of a hill overlooking the LA skyline. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was the ‘spot’. I told Alice that we could go grab some food in Downtown LA after and make a date of it. She agreed and the plan was in motion.

So Dec 6. finally arrives and I wake up feeling extremely nervous. Alice comes up to me and says, ‘Can we not go today? I just want to stay home’. My immediate reaction was ‘ARE YOU SERIOUS???’. She later gave in as she saw how annoyed I was getting.

We finally head out to to the park. On the drive there, I was texting with my little brother since he was already at the park and was camping out at the bench so that no one takes it. We arrive at the park and I quickly throw the ring into the inside pocket of my coat.

At this point, Alice was already beginning to think that something was up. She goes over and starts looking around my camera bag and walks up behind me asking me ‘if something was going to happen today’. I gave her a huge laugh and flat out told her ‘no’ to her face. I don’t think I have ever seen her that disappointed…

Now with the sun setting, I decided it was time. I had her stand in front of the bench and I set the camera on ‘record’ so that I could capture the moment. I walked up to Alice and told her that my friend had sent me a weird video the other day. The video itself was something I put together through the help of our close friends and family. It consisted of 10-15 sec clips of our friends talking about what comes to mind when they think about us. The video ended with a clip of me letting her know that I had one more question to ask…I then got down on one knee and I asked her the most important question of my life.