Engagement Story

Throughout their entire relationship, David and Cassandra have always been very open with each other. They began talking about the possibility of marriage in late 2009, and both agreed that it was a path they wanted to purse. But, they wanted to let it happen in it’s own time, there was no need to rush!

At some point, they decided it was time to start engagement ring shopping. David had an heirloom diamond that both he and Cassandra wanted to have re-set in a new setting. They visited one commercial jewelry store, where Cassandra told the associate she was nervous about having prongs in the ring, because of the chance of snagging them and losing the heirloom diamond. The associate’s response was, “That’s what insurance is for!” Needless to say, that was the last commercial jewelry store they visited.

The next time they were out visiting David’s family in Montana, Mary Alice, his mother, took them to meet with Stephen and Cindy Isley, of Stephen Isley Jewelry. Mary Alice had worked with Stephen before, and thought that he might be able to help David and Cassandra either pick out or design the perfect ring. After they left, it took Cassandra a few weeks to give the final go ahead (it’s hard to say you are certain about something that doesn’t exist yet!) to have the ring made.

At this point, it was all out of Cassandra’s hands. She thought about where the process was several times, but David was very careful to not give her any idea about how things were coming along.

On Saturday, February 12th, David and Cassandra were having friends over to play video games in the early afternoon. Cassandra was working to reheat some leftovers from the night before, to enjoy for lunch. David had taken a phone call and had actually stepped out into our apartment hallway to take it. Cassandra just assumed it was a personal call, and didn’t think much about it.

During her lunch preparation, Cassandra accidentally knocked a small prep bowl off of the counter, and it shattered into a million pieces on the ground. When David returned from his phone call, Cassandra was in the process of cleaning it all up. With their sweet kitty Moe in the house, they are very particular about making sure that there is nothing on the ground that he might accidentally eat or hurt himself on.

After about 10 minutes, everything seemed to be cleaned up, and Cassandra went back to making and enjoying her lunch. She was sitting on one side of the kitchen island counter, opposite the side where the prep bowl had been knocked off. David moved around to the opposite side of the counter, and reached down to pet Moe, who was winding between his legs.

Suddenly he said, “Cassie! We missed a big piece of glass, can you get me a wet paper towel to clean it up with?” So she got up from her side of the counter, and moved around to the opposite side to give him a wet paper towel. As she turned around, she looked down to where he was kneeling to see where they had missed a piece. And there, on the floor, just peeking out from underneath the counter, was a ring.

It took Cassandra a minute to figure out what was going on. She couldn’t help but say, “Are you serious?” She later said that her first thought was wondering why David had gotten the cat a plastic, vending machine ring to play with (when it is on it’s side, down on the floor, it’s hard to make out exactly what type of ring it is!!) David responded with, “Well, I’m down on one knee, aren’t I?”

Obviously, Cassandra said yes, and the two got to share the news with some friends almost immediately, since they started to arrive only a few minutes later.

They then made sure to call their respective families, and then sent the news out over Twitter.