David's Version

Last night, outside the Rotary Lights at Riverside Park with the temperature hovering around nine degrees Fahrenheit, I asked my beautiful girlfriend to become my wife.

“How did you do it?” you ask? Well, it started with the help of her roommates who blindfolded and kidnapped her for the trip down to the park. You see, Thursday night is always “Roommate Night” for the three of them, so she wasn’t expecting to see me at all.

I was already at the park, setting up a large sign made from rope lights that asked, “Erica - Will you marry me?” so that it would face out at all the lights from the Rotary decorations and getting our good friend and photographer set to take some photos of the momentous event (photos below).

Once the girls arrived, kidnap-ee in tow, they brought her out of the car, across the street and down to me without saying a word. At that point they left Erica and me to be alone, but Erica still didn’t know who was leading her around blindfolded.

I took her the last short distance to where I had the sign setup looking out at the beautifully decorated park, removed her blindfold and got down on one knee. And then I waited…and waited…and waited. Erica was so shocked she was speechless and barely even breathing! I finally had to ask her the question verbally to get any response. Of course she said yes!

From there I had our photographer friend return and take a few more pictures, this time without any blindfolds, and we headed back to her apartment so that she could get ready for the dinner reservations I had made at Traditions Restaurant. We dined in the “Vault” which is an original bank vault (the restaurant was a bank before it became a restaurant) turned private-dining-room-for-two.

And thus ends the events of a perfectly planned and executed proposal. So we’re getting’ hitched!

~ Originally posted at David's personal site.

Erica's Version

So most of you know that David Paul and I got engaged this last weekend!

On Thursday night after CRU, Robyn, Zerbe and I were walking out, goofing around and Zerbe blindfolds me. For some reason I just go with it and say "ok fine whatever, as long as I get food I'm happy" (and they promised me I was getting food). We drive around in circles for awhile when the car comes to a stop. They take me out of the back seat and tell me to hurry up there is a car coming (I'm thinking we are crossing West Ave to go to Taco Bell!) so as they pull me along I hear them say "ok see ya" and heard them running away....yet someone still has my arm and they are continuing to pull me along...( I have no idea who has my arm so now I'm getting a little weirded out, at first I thought the whole thing was a joke).

All of a sudden we stop and I heard "ok you can take the blindfold off now" and I see David on one knee with a ring in his hand. We are at the Rotary Lights at River Side park (which some of you don't know but its a huge park they decorate every year with x-mas lights everywhere) and David made a sign that said "Erica will you marry me?" all lit up (he stole the electricity from the park!)

Needless to say I was speechless. Poor David, I didn't answer him for a while because I just kept looking around thinking this wasn't real. I finally did say yes and his friend Eric came over to take pictures of us (which I'll learn how to upload I promise) but you can look at our pics on David's web site http://www.davidpaulellenwood.com. We then went back to my apartment so I could change for dinner and we went to Traditions (this resturant in Onalaska that used to be an old bank) so we ate in an old bank vault and the whole night was romantic and perfect! I think I'm still getting over the shock of it all but dang has the Lord blessed me!