That’s RIGHT!! AH!!!! WE’RE ENGAGED! We had our surprise New Years Eve proposal just a little over a week ago! A lot of you have been asking how he asked — I’m so excited to share!

Nikhil partnered up with my best friend Chelsea to plan the proposal – everything started as a guise for her birthday party, which was supposed to take place on NYE. I planned a morning of getting her pampered so she would be gussied up for her special night.

Chelsea let me know on the way to her party that we needed to stop at Trader Joe’s for a last minute item. The downtown Austin Trader Joe’s is right next door to one of my favorite places in Austin – the Seaholm District – where I take many of my couples to have their engagement photos done. Chelsea sneakily lead me in that direction and that’s when I knew something was up. I was still a little clueless and played my bossy photographer self and insisted we take a different route — whoops!

Even though I took us the wrong direction, I got a full view of Nik waiting with all my best friends (one of whom flew in from NY) to propose. It was very overwhelming and even though I hate being the center of attention, it was so precious to be able to share that moment with my favorite humans. Thankfully Nik had coordinated with my best friends Holly and AJ of Holly Marie Photography to shoot the whole thing (if you remember – I photographed their proposal and engagement too! Check out her blog of our proposal HERE)!

They all took me to a surprise dinner afterwards and I got to immediately FaceTime my parents – one of my favorite memories of all time is seeing my mom burst into happy tears when I told her! Our families have both gotten close to each other, so it’s been such a blessing to watch them connect over this too!

For those of you who don’t know our story: We were introduced accidentally in upstate New York by my best friend Sam and Nikhil’s former lab mate from when he earned his PhD. Me and our friend Veronica had decided on an impromptu visit to Albany to visit Sam and Nik had come over to lend something to my friend and we instantly hit it off. We were friends first since the timing just wasn’t right. Once we began talking, I decided to fly up to upstate New York for our first official date. It wasn’t long before we both realized this was the endgame for both of us and thus we began our entire relationship of long distance love. Lots of FaceTimes, Southwest Rapid Rewards points and planning later and now we’re getting married – AH! It’s been so much fun to bring our families together so far and truly get to the root of building a meaningful life together.

Our Surprise New Years Eve Proposal