Too early for RING-ING in the New Year???

Nope! It's engagement season! And rings will be presented to lovely brides to be from now until Valentine's Day!!! I am happy to announce, that I AM ONE OF THEM!!!!! I am so excited! For nearly 20 years now I have been in the floral industry, sending hundred of brides down the aisle, and NOTHING is better than that moment when she steps out for the first time, walking toward her groom.

Most couples get engaged between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day, and we LOVE to hear all about our bride's engagement stories. It is so important to get it right, because that moment will last a lifetime! Eric got our "moment" JUST RIGHT!!! Every year my friends and I have what we call "Friends Thanksgiving" as a way to celebrate and be thankful for each other before we get caught up in the holiday hustle that is usually devoted to family. I love my friends as if they were my family, and our tradition spawned from the idea that we were closer than blood, and in a sense, they WERE my family. Years of being there for each other, watching careers change, marriages happen, celebrating births of children, struggling through divorces, and millions of other ups and downs that have happened along the way, has bound us all together for a lifetime. When Eric and I met four years ago, my friends embraced him as one of "us" right away. This hadn't happened with previous relationships. I was always thought of as being on my own. Invitations didn't come for me and my significant others, just "Tiffany". It became assumed and quite common that when we had a get together, I would show up alone. This always seemed fine to me, because this was my family, a place where I belonged and I knew I fit right in. It didn't feel like there was a piece missing there. When I met Eric, he quickly became my best friend. He was a part of me, one half of a whole, and ALL my friends felt just the same way I did, and before he knew it, he was in the club!

That is why it was so PERFECT that he took this year's "Friends Thanksgiving" to ask me to marry him. It is really tough to surprise me, so there was no way he could do the birthday, Christmas, or family get together route....that's why this was perfect. He had all my friends in on the surprise, and as we gathered around the table, he was purposefully placed in the spot where he would share what he was thankful for...last. As we went around the table, everyone shared their thankfulness for each other and other things in their lives. I shared that I was thankful for creating "Friends Thanksgiving" and that over the years some faces had changed, and we had some additions and subtractions, but that THIS year, I knew that everyone standing there would be there year after year. We were ALL in the right place.

Then, it was Eric's turn, and I was NOT expecting it! He turned to everyone, thanked them for welcoming him into our "family" and asked me to spend my life with him.

That's why this is the perfect start to engagement season! What a great memory we will always cherish, and I am so grateful that some of the people I am closest to were there to witness it. I am going to marry my best friend, and my family is going to marry him too. That's how I know this is the right one. My Mr. Right, Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Fix it.....and I can't wait to be MRS. SCHNELLER!!!!!!!!

Adding fabulosity to your florals, Tiffany