He Said / She said

This is cute his side of the story is first, then her side...Enjoy

Alex's story

For our one year anniversary, I had a big plan of things to do. All of them revolving around our first date. She had no idea what was going on for that weekend, she only knew that we were going to be here in Indy. She asked that I had a bottle of champagne for some point during the night because it was our anniversary. The proposal night started with me driving her to dinner, where I revealed to her the plans for the rest of the evening. Our one year anniversary would actually be our ‘perfect’ first date. On our first date, we went to Cheeseburger in Paradise on Southport and enjoyed a great meal of burgers and margaritas. After dinner for our first date, we had planned on going to Christmas at the Zoo. Problem is that we spent 3 hours at Cheeseburger and the zoo was closing right as we got there. So for our anniversary, we actually went to dinner early enough that we had time to relax and chat as well as go to the zoo. So, Christmas at the Zoo was the next stop where we walked around and went to the dolphin show, which was the first one she’d seen since she was a little girl. On our first date because the zoo was closed, we went to the circle and got Starbucks cause it was so cold. So we did that as well for our anniversary. As we were leaving downtown, I told her that was the night and that I had nothing else planned for the evening. Afterwards, we headed back to our apartment.

Shortly after we get home, I call her into our office and have her go look at this website. The website is ForMyLobster.com. As she reads through the site, he pulls out his prepared speech (so he didn’t forget anything) and puts the ring box in his pocket. After she reads the home page of the site, which tells the story of their history, it says, “After she finishes reading the story of their amazing love together, she turns around… To be continued”. She turns around and I read the prepared speech, which centered around our song “Love Song” by 311. Shortly after she started tearing up from the cute story, I will admit, I started to cry tears of happiness as well. It made it hard to get through the speech, but she says it was one of her favorite parts of the proposal. At the end of the speech, I got down on one knee and asked her to make the me happiest man in the world, asked for her hand and heart for the rest of our lives, and asked “Will you marry me?”. Of course, she said yes. The last surprise of the evening was the bottle of champagne that she had requested prior to the anniversary.

Amanda's story

It was the weekend of our first anniversary as a couple. I had no idea what to expect. I kept trying and trying to get information out of Alex but he wouldn't budge. The only thing we would tell me was that we were going vine hunting. He would often tell me ridiculous things like that were going to chase wolves or something just so I would have no idea what was going on. Our actual anniversary was on Sunday but we decided to celebrate on Saturday. That morning we woke up and I took Alex to breakfast at Patachou on the Park downtown. They have the most amazing waffles and hot chocolate!! After that, Alex took over for the day. He wouldn't tell me where we were going and just started driving. Once we got on 74 East and started heading away from Indy, I kind of started to get an idea of where we were going. Alex and I both love wine. We love going to different wineries and doing tastings so I realized that he was taking me to Buck Creek Winery. We get there, get out of the car, he leads me over to their vines, crouches down and says, "Ssssssh we have to be quiet. We don't want to scare them. We have to hunt the vines." After a couple minutes of laughing we went inside to look around. We were there for a while and I am pretty sure we tasted every wine they had. We even bought 6 or 7 bottles. After we left Buck Creek, we headed downtown to Easley Winery. At Easley, we took a tour of the winery, tasted some more wine, and bought a couple more bottles. Our wine rack is full for a while!We went home to drop off all the wine that we bought and we decided to get some food. Alex took me Cheeseburger in Paradise and revealed his big plan for our anniversary which was to take me on our first date again but this time he wanted it to be the "perfect" first date. (Little did he know that I already thought our first date was perfect.) So let me explain, on our first date our plans were to go out to dinner and then go to Christmas at the Zoo (I love the zoo!). We definitely attempted this but we spent so much time at dinner talking that by the time we made it to the zoo it was closed already. Since it was closed, he took me to the circle to see the lights. We walked around and he bought me one of my favorite things, a caramel macchiato. I couldn't have asked for a better first date. Alex thought this date was great also but he really wanted to take me to the zoo that night. So that is where our anniversary comes in and him wanting to give me the perfect first date.He took me to Cheeseburger in Paradise and we sat in the same booth as we did on our first date. We talked and talked and enjoyed each other's company as we did that night. After dinner, we headed to the zoo and this time they were OPEN!!!! We walked around looking at the lights and the animals. We decided to go watch the dolphin show which I haven't seen since I was little. I kept trying to talk Alex into letting us take home a dolphin and a penguin. We took lots of pictures. My favorite was one in front of a giant lit up lobster because that is what Alex and I are. If you are wondering where we came up with that, it actually came from the television show Friends. There is one episode where Pheobe talks about how Ross and Rachel are lobsters because lobsters mate for life and walk around holding claws. One of my friends just looked at us one day and told us we were lobsters and it just kind of stuck.After the zoo, Alex took me to the circle where he proceeded to buy me a caramel macchiato. We walked around the circle and Alex even pointed out the exact spot where he put his arm around me for the first time. And that was it. That was the end of our perfect first date and the end of our anniversary celebration (or so I thought).Alex drove us home and had gone into the bedroom to change into my pajamas when Alex called me into the office. He sat me down in his office chair and said he wanted to show me something. When I looked at the computer screen, I saw a website. Alex is a web developer and for our anniversary he had developed a website for us (http://www.formylobster.com/). He had me read it and it told the story of how he and I got together. It was the sweetest thing I had ever read. Towards the end it said, "After she finishes reading the story of their amazing love together, she turns around..." and that's what I did. I turned around and there was Alex standing in front of me with a piece of paper. He starting reading what he had written. It was amazing. It was about our song (Love Song by 311) and how it described how he felt about me perfectly. It was hard to keep from crying during this. I was tearing up and he was tearing up. Then, he got down on one knee. I think my heart stopped at that moment. He asked me to marry him and I barely got out the word yes before I had tackled him. We busted out the champagne and called our family. It was the best anniversary. Not only did Alex give me my perfect first date, but he gave me my perfect engagement and I get to spend the rest of my life with the love of my life!!