I knew Ashlee was the girl I was going to marry long before I even started planning the proposal. And honestly at first just the thought of getting married kind of scared me, (I know this sounds corny) but the more I thought about it, I couldn't imagine not being with Ashlee for the rest of my life.

So anyway, one day we were at the mall and we decided to go look at rings just for fun, we went to a few stores and I ended up having a pretty good idea of what kind of ring she wanted, even on a tight budget. About a month or so past and we found ourselves at the mall again and went into another jewelry store to look around. And that's when she found it, (and surprisingly it was actually pretty reasonably priced ;]) she told me that was the ring she wanted, even when I told her that when the time came, I might even be able to spend a little more money, she insisted this is the one she wanted. So who was I to disagree? A few months later I went in to check on the ring to make sure it was still there, and to my surprise they were having a sale, I was so excited, I bought it and made arrangements to pick it up the next week after it had been re-sized.

Now that I had the ring, I knew I had to plan an awesome proposal. I had a few ideas, but finally settled on one, I would make a huge sign that said "MARRY ME?" and have a few friends hold it up somewhere in sight of the space needle. I would go up there with her, point one of the telescopes at it and have her look through it. Easy enough right? I had my step-sister Alyssa (the maid of honor) ask Ashlee and I if we wanted to go "hang out" in Seattle for the day. The night before the big day, I found myself in the garage of my apartment painting a huge sign with butcher paper and black paint, (our manager wasn't too pleased, but I promised I wouldn't make a mess) I finally finished and told my roommate Tim (the best man) exactly where to hold up the 6 foot tall sign. The next day we just happened to find ourselves walking around the Seattle Center and Alyssa "came up with" the idea to go up in the space needle. By the time we got into the elevator, I realized that I had forgotten I was afraid of heights, plus I was just slightly nervous as it was. We finally made it up there and my legs felt like jello. We went to the opposite side first and looked at the view of downtown while taking pictures. We finally made it over to the other side and I pointed the telescope at the park where the sign was, which was actually kind of hard to find... and to my horror the telescope wouldn't stay where I put it! So I told Ashlee to look at this park over on Queen Ann where we had been before, just hoping that she would see the sign. I turned to Alyssa to get the ring which was safe and sound in her purse, and got on one knee behind Ashlee, which seemed like forever until she turned around. She didn't actually see the sign at first, but she saw me down on the ground behind her. She turned around and I popped the question (in front of way more people than I had originally thought). I finally ended up showing her the sign through the telescope, and we eventually went down to the park where Tim, Mike and Missy had been holding the sign with very tired arms. I think it is safe to say that this was one of the best days of my life.